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Almost everyone has set foot in a church in one time or another, and there is a reason that they either hang around or they get out. I'm looking for your stories. I'm looking for the examples from your life behind the reasons. Tell me about the best and worst Christians you've ever met. What made you stay in a church? What made you leave?

What I'm NOT looking for is opinions on people or churches you've never had a personal experience with. To me, those opinions are always based on an internal personal experience, and that's the key to what I'm looking for. The reason I ask is that I'm looking at writing a paper for a Christian publication, and your stories would be a great help with framing my argument. Thanks.

Let's keep this one anecdotal only- if it turns into a debate it will end up in Politics or (more likely) the Den. Don't make me do that.

Personally- I was raised by Catholic father and a Protestant mother. When I was very young, I went to Catholic Mass with my Dad and siblings. My mother discovered fundamentalism when I was about 5 or 6, and that starts a holy war in the family.

I didn't like either experience, to be honest. Both sects had 'rules' that just didn't make sense to me (Catholic ban on birth control, fundies who wouldn't eat 'unclean' foods and disallowed facial hair); if it doesn't pass my logic test, I can't take it seriously. Why in the world would God care what I ate or whether I grew a beard or not? Why is all sex supposed to be for procreation only?

I took umbrage with what I saw as man 'interpreting God's will' to control my life for no logical reasons. At this point, I am completely turned off to any form of organized religion. Once a hierarchy is in place, it interferes with what should be a private relationship between an individual and their God.

I'm just going to copy and paste from this thread (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=4255.0):


So basically, I'm a Christian (that is, I believe in Christ, as well as everything in the Nicene or Apostle's Creed), but I can't seem to find anything but a hassle as far as churches go. So I stopped caring. I will say that theologically though, I'm probably some weird concoction of an Orthodox and Calvinist (I'm too busy to explain atm).

I was supposed to be Lutheran; I had to ask my mother this at some point years ago because my denomination was completely unknown to me - I was not raised in a religious household.  I married a Catholic just over two years ago and plan to start the Rite of Christian Initiation (i.e. become Catholic) in a few weeks.  During RCIA I will have the opportunity to ask any questions that come up prior to Baptism on Easter.  I have been attending Mass with my wife for about 5 years now.

I see nothing wrong with "organized" religion any more than I see something wrong with "organized" gaming; if something is important to you, you tend to gravitate towards like-minded people.  Of course, the organized faithful are just as human as the "unorganized," and have the same human tendency toward immorality / sin.  But because there is no "Church of the Unorganized," theres no bullseye target to throw disparaging comments at.  When a person with no affiliation and only vague religious views commits a crime, no one decries the failures of those following a "personal God." - its understood that the crime  was totally the fault of the individual.

I was raised Missouri Synod Lutheran.

I was one with the Pot Luck.

Best christian I knew would have been my sociology professor, who was an ordained minister that did not believe in god.

Worst christian I know through their son out for falling in love with a non-christian and getting her pregnant.  The son is a good friend of mine and a much better parent than his were.  He is a taoist now.

I have been to Notre Dame and have to say that is the prettiest church I have been in that is christian.

My father is catholic, my mother is methodist, and I am an agnositic non-chrisitian.  Best reason I can give for my non-chrisitian view is I can not get past the dogma of the whole christ myth.  Concrete Blonde summed it up very well with Tomorrow, Wendy.

Neither of my parents belonged to any organized religion that I am aware of. My mom is somewhat spiritual, my dad doesn't talk about it, but is more less an Atheist. They never made any effort to influence me one way or the other as I grew up. By about highschool I came to the realization that I was an Atheist.

I've never been to a church service other than weddings or funerals. I have or have had friends that vary from RC, Protestant, Sikh, J's Witness, and various misc Christian that I've never asked about.

Anecdotes:

 - I remember my best friend when I was about six coming home from Sunday Scholl and telling me I would go to hell if I didn't start going to church. I though it was nice that he cared, but didn't believe it.

 - In my teens, my Aunt and Uncle found some fundy group - they followed such great beliefs like Smurfs were evil little blue devils. Never really liked that Aunt anyway.

 - In my twenties a guy I worked with in the past who had been a total party animal and an asshole - got rehired. He had found God since he had left. Read his Bible at work every day. Tried argueing with me that the Earth was 1000 years old, and that dinosaur bones had been planted by God to test us. I didn't care, he was still an asshole.

- A good friend of mine grew up in a Catholic family. Was fairly Agnostic until he hit about 25, and something made him start to take Catholicism to heart. Being good friends, we'd occasionally sit in the bar and debate our beliefs over a beer. It amazes me how well prepared new found Catholics are for debating this stuff. Do they have special training seminars before Mass?

- Went to the same guy's wedding. He's Catholic, she's Protestant. They had the wedding in a Catholic Church. It was like a Catholic Wedding-Lite. Ceremony was only about 20 minutes, because there were a whole buch of parts they couldn't do due to the mixed faiths. The groom had to actually prod the Priest to say a sermon or something to draw the ceremony out a bit. So what's he do? Breaks out a sermon about the sanctity of marriage that came accross as a thinly veilled attack on Gay marraige. Oh well.

What else can I say. I've always been impressed by religious architecture.

Could you elaborate on this please, Fargull? The best Christian you know didn't believe in god? What were his characteristics like? What made him a good Christian to you?

I was raised Catholic, but after I was confirmed (9th grade) I pretty much just went to church to satisfy my mom.  I met my wife who was raised Evangelical Free (basically nondenominational) and their family thought Catholics were the devil. (They didn't know much about it.)

We met in High School and never went to church.  We went through college and never went to church.  We went to church a few times to satisfy the church so we could get married there.  Then we stopped going again.

After our second child was born we started thinking about our lives and our time away from the church and our religions.  I knew I wasn't going back to Catholism.  I was not too wild about my in-law's church either.

We got invited to a local church by some friends that said it was very contemporary and non-denominational.  They said it was run by one pastor and a group of elders.  That was it.  There wasn't any huge political issue there, it was lead and run by a permanent selection of people which is to say it was run by the one pastor that started it.  They are fundamental in the fact that they let the Bible decide everything.  Yet, they don't pick and choose areas to dictate how you should do things to please God like drinking, gambling, dancing, etc.  All that is fine.

We tried it and never looked back.  We are both very active in our ministries there and have found great long lasting friendships too.  Our kids have great fun and learn a lot in the schools they run during services.  That's right, no kids in the services so very little distractions.

We use a large amount of high tech video and audio equipment and I help with that most every Sunday or Saturday.  They make use of a lot of current film clips or videos to make points.  They absolutely do not shy away from controversial subjects and relate everything from today's life to parts of the bible that pertain.  In my mind, it is perfect.  The worship songs are contemporary and not boring at all.  The band is made up of volunteers, but they are all typically professionals so the sound is commercial quality.

They don't care how you're dressed (I normally go in jeans or shorts with sandals.)  They don't care about your status and they rarely bring up tilthing, but they let you know it is necessary.  They are a seeker church, meaning their purpose is to spread the word of Jesus's saving grace, but completely believe it is between the individual and Jesus as to whether they truly believe.  That can never be forced upon anyone.

The youth programs (Junior High and High School) are extemely contemporary.  Some of the groups they have come to perform are way out there with hardcore metal rap to more of what you might expect too.  They have comedians come in too.  The kids are expected to come to their own conclusion with Jesus and what he has to offer, but of course they give them all the advise and training they care to have too.  Again, nothing is forced on anyone and they are all accepted in for a great safe and fun place to be.

Our church started as mobile meeting in a school gymnasium.  Now we are in our second year in our building, which is huge and extremely high tech and multipurposeful.  We commonly host national muscial and comedian acts (as long as they are appropriate meaning no cursing, drugs, smoking and must have a positive message.)  They don't necessarily have to have a Christian message but that doesn't hurt.

That covers most of it, but not all of it.

So the leadership upsets you the most then? What about changing the way a church was run? Is it inherent in the message itself that no church structure could work for you? I'm trying to discover if the structure itself is the main factor in driving people out.

I was raised Episcopalian. We went to church most Sundays, but once we were confirmed (age 14 at my church) our parents made it optional - which meant I stopped going. I actually enjoyed Sunday school as a kid. I found the Bible interesting. Sunday school was taught by local parents, though, not a preachy clergyman. I went to boarding school for grades 9-12. It was my choice to go (albeit both my parents and lots of uncles and cousins went) and my choice of school (the same one my Dad and his Dad attended.) It was an Episcopal school with a service on Sunday evenings. There was also a chapel Thursday, but it was more a community event than a religious one. Every student had to take a once a week (versus 3 times a week for most) religious class in 10th grade.

After high school, I never went to church again unless it was a funeral, baptism or wedding. My parents used to ask me to come with them on Easter or Christmas if I was home but I generally refused.

Why?

I find the repetitiveness of religious services horribly boring. The Apostles' Creed becomes really tiresome the 200th time and it isn't any better the 500th time. I believe in a higher power, but I really don't believe He cares if we worship in a specific building. In my mind, all that matters to Him is how we treat others. I generally give help to those who ask, but don't seek out those in need actively so even within my very broad definition I come up short. Bottom line, nothing I experienced in church convinced me that Jesus Christ was the Lord made flesh. He was just a prophet like all the others (Isaiah, Ezekiel) with a message that needed (and needs) to be spread.

Another thing I don't like about organized religion is that a lot of the members of any particular congregation consider that membership a badge of honor or a shield from criticism.

Despite all this, I am torn by a desire for my kids to have some exposure to religion so they can make up their own minds. I keep telling myself I am going to start taking my son to Sunday school but the thought of sitting in the chapel for an hour listening to the same old prayers and hymns again makes me squirm just thinking about it.

Great question, Paelos.

Church as a gathering is outdated, maybe. In the 1500s, it was important for people to have a central gathering place. It was also necessary if the church hoped to collect any tithes. Having all your customers visit you at the same time makes gathering donations a lot easier. The way the message is delivered has to change with the times. Even as recently as the 1900s, most people didn't even have access to scripture because so many could not even read. Why should I go to Church to hear Mr Minister spouting the denominational interpretation when I can read the Bible myself? If the Bible is so sacred, why are there so many "plain language" versions coming out? Those versions just diminish any mystery. That is a rhetorical question because it is obvious why - accessibility.

I was raised Baptist. My grandmother, who I spent a lot of time with, was a bible study teacher, both my grandparents were extremely active in church - it was their entire social life, basically. Up until the age of 13 or so, I attended church multiple days a week, and all day sunday for various classes and services.

I got out of it because I simply don't buy the dogma. I have a ravenous scientific curiosity, and rather than discuss this, I was constantly rebuffed with simplistic platitudes "You just have to believe!". And being Baptist, I kinda had some issues with the whole 'get dunked in the magic pool or you burn for eternity in hell' thing. I'm not down with that kind of god, really.

I then embarked on a long journey of study, working over several accepted religions and philosophies before getting into the occult for many years. In all my studies, I found myself constantly rejecting the manmade dogma for the reality of existence I can see around me. My idea of a church isn't some stone building with pretty windows, but rather a nice waterfall or shady copse of trees, the very places this 'god' has provided himself via natural selection. I do not let man enter into my relationship with the unknown, which I sum up as 'nature'. I do not externalize internal fortitude and wisdom, nor do I seek to shrieve myself of my mistakes, I learn from them.

Given my early religious education, I find the lack of holiness amongst even church members very disturbing and hypocritical, the seeming lack of understanding of the teachings of the prophets, the ignorance of the fundamental commandments laid out by early folklore, I feel the entire christian church is fairly out of touch with the teachings of Christ. Even the veneration of Christ over God bothers me...I don't feel Christ was sent (well, I don't believe he was literally sent by God anyway, just an exceedingly advanced and wise man imo) to be worshipped, but to deliver a message. The Catholic church in particular has strayed extremely far off the path of holiness and even the very words they claim to follow.

I'd like to see humanity as a whole drop this decisive and destructively seperatist idea of 'religion' and just move to a more humanistic spirituality that treats all humans as equals to be respected, without the whole dog and pony show, the funny hats, the pre-designated holy places. It'd be nice to end one of the reasons for unending strife in the world, even if it doesn't mean an end to strife in the world.

Really, the whole rigamarole is just to treat people with respect and not be a douchbag. Not much money in that, though, and no power to wield.

The story is his, but I will do my best to explain.  He was born into a heavily methodist family and took up the calling and got his degree in ministry.  He enjoyed academia and thus branched into several areas.  He ended up with a Doctorate in Sociology, I think he has multiple doctorates, but that is the one I knew him under.  He was in the military and as I understood it was a minister in this capacity also, one of his main drives was the learning of knowlege.  He was very active in the community and provided social services to those who could not afford, presented in court, and was consulted on a national scale on human rights issues.  He explained in class that he stopped believing in god in this fifties.  He believes in the community of the church, but does not believe in the dogma behind it.  He was one of the most open, compassionate, well rounded individuals I have ever met.  He was one of the few people I have come across that one could term the word wise towards.  I would imagine one could term the same to the dahli lama, though I have not had the pleasure of meeting him.

Big hitter, the Lama.


Now, back to Church Chat.

Ahh, the days of church.  How clearly I remember them.  

My grandmother used to drag me to church with her every sunday morning and wednesday evening.  Southern Victory Baptist church in Thackerville, Texas.  Woohoo, buddy!

I still remember some of the hymns we would sing aloud to from this cool little hymn book with the velvety edged pages, like "I'll fly away, oh glory, I'll fly away...when I die, Hallelujah, by and by, I'll fly away!"  (which, Johnny Cash did a cover of, as well as a NINs song, go figure)  

After the singing of the hymns and swaying of the bodies, hands raised in the air, we would all sit and listen to the preacher begin his sermon of fire and brimstone.  This was my cue to lie under the pew upon which my grandmother and grandfather sat and play with my barbie dolls.  I would take napkins from my grandmother's purse (because everyone's grandmother carries at least 10 of these and other random useful things in their purses, like toothpicks, at all times) and I would rip them apart and make beds and pillows for my dolls.  Then I would lay them down and pretend like they were sleeping.  Today I wonder exactly what was wrong with me at that point, as sleeping, unmoving dolls are absolutely no fun at all, but this is what I did, almost every time.  

Back to the sermon, the preacher would preach and bounce around the pulpit and eventually it all come to this huge culmination of yelliing and praising Jesus, etc, etc.  And that's when it happened......

People would start moving one by one into a line down the middle of the church up to the preacher, where he would lay his hand upon their forehead at which point they would fall to the floor, limp, as if he'd sucked the life right out of them.  After a moment they would begin thrashing and speaking in tongues (which is what they actually called it).  To me it sounded just like gibberish.  I always wonder now, why I was never scared silly out of my little church dress and why I didn't run screaming for the car.  I suppose it's because I'd been subjected to it since I was teeny tiny and was therefore, used to it.    

I stopped going to church after I was done with sunday school age.  If I ever see anything like that again today, I would be scared shitless.  I haven't been to church in over 10 years, but that doesn't mean I don't pray.    

That's my story.  Hope it's not too meandering for you.   :)

It seems like many of you had parents that brought you to church, some even really semi-forced. My question is, does this help or hinder your chances of staying in a church group? Is it irrelevant, or was this early experience the main mover in you wanting to stay or never going back?

My parents are both Catholic and that's how they raised both my sister and me. We went to church every Sunday no matter what, even if we were travelling on vacation. My mom would always call ahead to find out where a Catholic church was and what time the Mass was. We didn't go to a Catholic school but we had to go to Continuing Chirstian Education (CCE) every week. That was interesting at times and mindlessly boring at others. Mostly it depended on who was teaching the classes that year. In order to keep attendance up in CCE, we didn't get confirmed until the 11th grade. The CCE class shrank to about 1/5 its size in 12th grade.

During elementary and aprt of junior high schools, we had a priest named Father Thomas. He was a real fire-n-brimstone kinda guy. He thought the only thing kids thought of was sex, drugs, and drinking, and we were all gonig to hell. On some CCE days, he'd call all the classes into the church and sit them down. He'd then call random kids to the front, make them stand att he podium in front of everyone, and then quiz them on what he thought they needed to know. If you go it wrong, he'd berate you in front of everyone causing many kids to start crying.

The priest after that one was Father Tom. This guy was like a hippie priest. Real laid back, rode a motorcycle, and played golf with my dad every week. Completely different from the other priest. Everyone really liked him.

When I went off to college, I continued to go to church for a while. I still remember the first time I decided to not go to church. It was a really pleasant Sunday morning and I just didn't feel like going. I did have a nagging feeling that a bolt of lightning was going to get me though. Since then, I've stopped going to church in any regular fashion. I know this bother my mom a whole lot. She's always talking to me about how I should start going again.

My wife is a Methodist but she doesn't go to church either. During the wedding plans, we decided to have the ceremony at a Methodist church. When we went by the Catholic church to see what we'd have to do to get the marriage recognized there, I was expecting to promise them our first born or something. Surprisingly enough, all they wanted was for us to go to a weekend retreat and make sure we were married in a church (not by Elvis in Vegas).

We usually go to church on the special occasions with either her family or mine. While the Medodist service is nice, it just doesn't feel like church to me. I think of it as Church-Lite "All the singing, half the guilt!" To me, unless you have all the ceremony and rituals of a full Catholic mass, it just doesn't feel like church. I know a lot of that is just my upbringing but it still bothers me when I go to a church service and they don't give the Eucharist.

For some reason, people who can spout off Bible verses (including giving the exact book, chapter, and verse) scare me a bit. They always seem to be more concerned about showing off how much the Bible they've memorized and less about what they are actually saying.

To answer Paelos' second question:

It is impossible for me to tell if my mom (note, not my dad) forcing me to go to church had an impact either way on my ultimate direction.  My initial direction when I was confirmed Catholic was to totally rebel.  I was totally and utterly done with Catholic mass and everything it stood for.  To me it was all show and most the people were there to show they were good Catholics, but ended up being the worst people outside of church you'd ever want to know.  The worse they were, the more they held to the rituals (and told you about it too.)

However, if I hadn't known Christianity in any form by the time I graduated college, I don't know if I ever would have thought about church again.  It was always in the back of my mind, but I always felt there had to be a better way to know and access the love that Jesus has for me.  That nagging in my head led me to the church that fits perfectly into what I think Jesus would have wanted from the beginning.  The road was more than rocky, but ended very well.

I fundementally just don't believe in the idea behind organized religion. I can't come to grips with the idea that any of them could actually be right in thier beliefs.

To me, historically organized religion has always been there to appease the masses. It gives an answer to the questions we don't have answers for, and thus makes it easier for people to accept things the way they are. Don't get me wrong, I do believe that many religious groups are responsible for doing great things, but in general, I think of religion as a crutch.

I've known too many people that have problems in their lives, that end up finding it easier to fall back on religion to comfort them, rather than standing up and trying to improve their situation.

I've always tried to say that I respect people who have conviction in their faith, but honestly I'm lying when I say that. in the back of my mind I'll always see it as a weakness. (No offense, it's just me being honest with myself)

As for structure of the church itself - at least talking Christian religions - yea, I've always had issues with that. I have an Aunt who is a major player in her church's politics. I always found the politicing that goes on to be absurd. from what I've seen of many other major religions, its much the same.

Raised/dunked Mormon. Decided it was a crock of shit on theological, sociological and political grounds.

Hung out with some cool Jesuits in college.

 Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery..


No, on a more serious note:

I grew up in Saudi Arabia between the ages of 6 and 13.  In my mind, very key ages in which to 'help' a child along the religious path to enlightenment.  My mother is Roman Catholic of the oldest school (Lebanese Church), and my father was a Lutheran I believe who basically changed his beliefs when he married my mom.  Growing up in Saudi, my only religious influences were my Mother (details of the Catholicism, Bibles stories, the value of morality) and the sect of Islam that is adopted in general by Saudi society.  There were(are) no churches in Saudi, only mosques.  So I grew up basically without any formal religious training as I like to call it.

Somewhere along the timeline, my parents stopped caring about religion, at least Catholicism.  Islam still played a very large roll in our lives (most of my friends were Western Muslims) in the fact that my mom had to cover up or the religious police would deem her dirty and wack her with a stick (Moutawas are ugly people).  Because most of our friends were Muslim, it wasn't really something that we did as a community -- my mother would tell me bible stories to try and teach me about good things and bad things, and my dad made me say prayer before I slept.

When we moved to Dubai, we were finally able to go to Church as there was a large Catholic church in the city.  It was at this point that we became Easter/Christmas Catholics as so many are.  I was 14 going on 20 at the time and didn't have time for the Church in my life.  Curiously, it was a time in my life that I started to grow curious about the Church and Catholicism, as well as the other religions that existed in the melting pot of Dubai.  My friends in highschool were all of different religions - muslim (different sects), hindu, bhuddists, catholic and orthodox.  No Jews (no slant there, just the way it was), and none of the thousands of sects of Christanity that exists here.  The older I got, the more I started to talk with my friends about their various religions.  My parents, while not racist or bigots, based on their prior experiences with certain people, tended to not like me knowing more about Islam and Bhuddism than I did about my given religion of Catholicism.  So they started more and more to try and make me read the bible, and involve it more in our lives.  I started to feel like they were pushing it on me as I was of age enough to decide for myself, and less of the age where you automatically believe what your parents tell you.

The summer after my freshman year in college, my dad was diagnosed with colon cancer and my family moved to Beirut to be closer to family -- just in case.  I went back to college that year a changed man, as seeing your father weakened to the point of surgeory, your mother broken down in front of your eyes, and having to shoulder the burden of caring for the family and your younger brother tends to age a man.  At this point, my family went one way, and I went the other.  They rediscovered Christ, and have become not fundemantilists but good Christians.  I drank and got laid a bunch.

Most recently, when they visit me, we discuss religion and how they feel they failed to train me properly for the rigors of life.  "Andrew, do you believe in Christ?", they ask me.  I tend to reply very firmly, "no."  After that, we discuss for a few hours, and it always comes to the same conclusion.  I don't believe in Christ or religion in general, but I believe in the power of religion to give hope to people who need it.  I believe in the calming, meditative powers of prayer, and the community and sense of being that comes from organized religion.  But I do not believe that one day a man will come and claim his flock for the battle of Heaven and Hell.  I do not believe it was Jesus that saved my dad and my family from the dangers of cancer, because if that was true, then it's also true that His Eminence was the one to give my father cancer.  I cannot believe in God, because for me to believe in God is to believe that God makes mistakes, and he's jealous of humankind and that means that God is just a big child and places me outside most non-cult religions (cult like cult movie hits, not scary cult we're going to kill ourselves).

I don't believe in God, or Heaven or Hell.  I believe in the power of man and community.I believe that religion fosters hope. Religion was a byproduct of evolution, man's first instict was to seek out other man, and to provide strength in numbers in order to live and thrive in the world -- religion provides a method for this function.

Above all, I absolutely respect the power that religion provides.

Edit: Power comment regarding my recent trip to the Vatican and various churches out there.  Some of that is just sick and I can't help but imagine the world was set back 1000 years because of religion.  Also, I still firmly believe that religion is the most powerful form of control.  That's why it's a form of evolution in man -- religion is a form of darwanism and natural selection.  Death from religious belief will continue until globalization occurs.

Heh. That's a good one. Maybe one could term the same of Mother Theresa, too. Or that racist bastard Ghandi. I love Penn & Teller.

My father came from an extremely Christian (undefined denomination as far as I know) family, my mother came from a fairly Mormon family.  As one would expect, they grew up to be only nominally "Christian" and raised me as such.

They took me to church once, I think at the behest of grandparents, on Christmas Eve.  I was bored out of my mind and disliked it very much.

In the 1st grade I went with a friend to a youth club he did at night.  It was fun, they had games, drinks, food, etc.  I was too young to realize that any organization that opens up with that is a Christian organization.  I signed up and didn't do very well.  They had a ranking process- copper crowns, silver crowns and gold crowns.  These were pinned to your vest.  Yes, vest.  When one crown filled all the way up with jewels (about 10 jewels per crown) you moved on to the next crown.  You'd get jewels for things like passing your Bible quizzes, etc.  You also got one jewel each time just for showing up.  That's the only way I advanced- I showed up.  I still thought it was cool, though, because I was very young and didn't really understand the complexities of religion.  I just assumed everyone believed in Christ, just like everyone knows Santa is obviously real- where else do the presents come from?  I liked to repeat the things I heard in this group, and apparently the extent to which I repeated this stuff worried my parents and even my super-Christian grandmother.  I probably seemed like quite the Bible nut when I was 6-7.  I remember they made a big deal when I said I accepted Jesus into my heart, even though at the age I had no idea what that meant.  I literally asked out loud one night while I was in bed, and it seemed like a pretty common sense decision at the time.  But it seemed to make them happy, so whatever.

I left that group a bit later of my own volition, mostly because I got bored with it.  I should touch a bit more on that friend and his family, though, because it's the first time I dealt with a very Christian family.

I liked them, but there were some things that struck me as odd.  For one thing, my friend wasn't allowed to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because it had a talking brain.  They prayed before every meal, which my family didn't do and it always struck me as irritating and a waste of time even when I believed in this stuff.  But, because it was there house, I went with it.  In retrospect, it's weird that my friend wasn't allowed to watch TMNT but they were perfectly fine with him playing Contra (his mom would even come in and do the cheat for us when we couldn't get it).  Isn't the final enemy in Contra another curiosly animated interior organ?

I moved to Arizona about this time and didn't really have much further religious experience for a while.  At this point I was about as Christian as my parents, which is to say I would say "I'm Christian" when people asked my religion and that was about it.  I still wasn't really familiar with the concepts of atheism or agnosticism.  I talked with my best friend about religion a bunch, typical pre-pubescent philosophy stuff, and we both agreed that God existed and that was about it.  He was in a weird combination Christian/Buddhist house, I never really got clear on that.

Eventually came high school.  I met a couple friends who considered themselves atheists and talked with them about it a couple times.  At this stage I was as Christian as someone washing their hands is going for a swim.  The more I thought about it, though my mind still wasn't fully developed at this stage, the less sense religion made to me.  By Sophomore year, I decided I was agnostic.  I went back and forth between agnosticism and atheism for the remainder of high school, and had a few nice run-ins with people who felt they were more Christian than me because I wore shirts for "gothic" bands.

A couple encounters from high school:

Nearly got in a large brawl in the parking lot of a Wendy's because a group of assholes shouted stuff at my friends and I (both having to do with Columbine, which had happened recently, and with our apparent lack of religion).

A friend of mine nearly got in a fight in school when some person I'd never met decided he'd start following/harassing me and initiated this process by saying the first words he'd ever said to me: "What do you have against Jesus, anyway?"  What the fuck is that?

I started a tabletop roleplaying club in the school, I went through all the official avenues and got everyone done by the books.  One week after the first meeting it was shut down.  No one bothered to tell me this, despite being the club founder.  Instead, I learned something was wrong because the morning announcements didn't include our announcement that there was a meeting that day.  I heard from a couple other members that the sponsoring teacher said it was closed down.  I went to speak with her and she acted quite normal with me, until I brought up the subject of the club to which she replied "Oh yeah, the administration shut it down."  I realized I wasn't going to get answers from her, so I went to the vice principal to talk about it.  He told me that the school didn't need the "press" that they had a roleplaying club.  Tell me that's not Christian influence demonizing RPing.  This is, by the way, a public, secular school.

I've got a dozen and more smaller stories, largely just people yelling things at me, comparing me to the Columbine killers and accusing me of being anti-Christian.  I certainly didn't used to be anti-Christian, but damn I got pretty pissed off during these years.  And yes, I committed the ultimate crime of wearing black on a daily basis.  No, I didn't wear fishnets, safety pins, chains, make-up, piercings, or any of that more extreme stuff.  I wore a black T-shirt, usually advertising a band, black jeans, black shoes.  Oooooooo, he's the devil.

On to college!

College was better.  There's only one offensive incident that took place, this was in philosophy class.  I was regarded pretty highly by most people in the class, because I made solid arguments.  The teacher, I'm sure, knew exactly how to dismantle my arguments but he was more the sort to let the class go back and forth than he was to argue one point or another.  During one talk about a subject I don't entirely remember, I believe it was religious tolerance, someone who'd previously expressed respect for me did something odd:
"It really shouldn't matter what religion you are, whether you're Christian <he gestures to himself>, or Jewish <he gestures to the girl who's talked about how she's Jewish> or even in some cult. <he gestures to my girlfriend and I>"

My girlfriend looked at me and I looked at her and we kinda laughed, thinking "Did he really just do that?"  He realized his mistake a little bit later and gestured/silently apologized, but I found it funny that he just automatically assumed the two of us were in a cult, even though I had very clearly made my beliefs known in this class, and he obviously knew them as we'd discussed each of our beliefs both in and out of class.  But instinctively, he thought of us when he thought "Cult."  Fantastic.

I could go on about how I cemented my agnosticism in this class, but that's outside the subject.  My interaction with Christians since then has been pretty limited.  I could also talk about the times I've gone out for Halloween and been shouted at by born-agains holding signs on street corners, but everyone has their crazies so I try not to let people like that influence my opinion of a culture.

Oh! I almost forget:
The best Christian and probably the best person I know are both my Grandmother on my father's side- the very Christian one who believes fate is pre-ordained by God and he has a purpose for everything, etc etc.  She is the kindest person I've ever met, and she's grown over the years from thinking that the Beatles were evil to now being perfectly okay with me not believing in religion.  She's always believed I'm an "old soul" and so, to her, my disbelief in God serves some purpose as ordained by God.  She completely respects my beliefs, and doesn't ask dumbass questions like "If you don't believe in God then why do you celebrate Christmas?"  If all Christians were like her, the world would be a wonderful place.

For me it was a gentle forcing since Church was Church and my parents didn't really bring it up other than on Sundays and holidays. If my parents hadn' brought me, I would never have known about it probably. I am glad they exposed me. I am glad they had the sense to let us off the hook at a certain point too. They don't go very much any more. They became dissatisfied with what became a revolving door of minsters about 20 years ago.

Interestingly, my mom became a non-denominational minister by taking a 6 week course. Now she does baptisms and weddings at an eccentric neighbor's private chapel. She uses the Episcopal prayer book still, though. She married me and the wife at that chapel. Sometimes she performs holiday services there. I go if I am home to support her.

Thanks for the responses so far guys, you are taking the questions seriously and I appreciate that.

My theory, that I'm discussing in the article I'm writing, talks about the reasons that people feel a need to take their children to church even though they aren't especially religious themselves. Then, when the kids grow up, what causes the seperation from the faith, or an even stronger clinging to it. Peoples' anecdotes help me cement a part of the root cause, which I think centers on the fact that the organized church is not engendering a feeling of brotherhood, but rather a combative attitude towards the secular world. In other words, I'm trying to figure out why the church is training people to be divisive, when it's against what I would think is it's community duty. I believe they are taking Jesus' words, "I am the sword to divide brother against brother," a bit too seriously.

Also, I'm trying to come up with the idea of a solution. That is, a church that would be a more welcoming spirit to the world. What would this church look like? Who would belong? What would a church have to do to reach out to you, and let you know that they are pleased you are there without seeming agenda driven?

EDIT: Grammar!

Raised Catholic.  Rebelled rather radically as a know-it-all rationalist when I was about 11.  Refused to get confirmed.  Yeah, I was a fucking nerd and a half, now just one nerd.  Anyway, I hated what I perceived to be religion's anti-intellectualism and the Chruch's stances of sex, women, gays, etc etc.  That sort of standard Enlightenment-style spiritual libertarian/liberal John Rawls-fan was basically me through my early 20's.  At that point, I started to feel a bit uneasy about that worldview for a lot of reasons that I don't want to get into (boring, and would take a thread of its own).  At the same time (law and grad school in particular) I started interacting with Jesuit academics who showed me a very different kind of priest, became enamored with Alisdair MacIntyre, who seemed to have some of the same problems with the state of society as I did, and learned something about Catholic liberation theology and the Catholic Workers movement.  A combination of those things led me to get confirmed in the Church in my very late 20's.  I still have more than a few problems with the Church, and particularly where it is headed both in the US and Rome (not as boring, but would still take a thread of its own).  I don't attend Mass very often, but I do consider myself a Catholic now, though I am sure that some would not.

I was raised what I interpret to be Protestant, although my parents referred to it as "regular Christian". Until I was about 7 or so, I had gone to Sunday school with my grandparents, whose house I would sleep at on Saturday nights. They spoiled me and my brother, so it was fun. It was a modest church, the one my dad had gone to when he was a kid. My dad had been raised this way, too, although my mom's family had tried out different sects numerous times as she was growing up. My parents didn't come to church with us, maybe because they saw Sunday mornings as a chance to have a break. I think it's because we were very poor and my dad resented tithing. He used to say, "if God is in your heart, then you are a church." After awhile, it became inconvenient to go to church with my grandparents, so I didn't go for awhile. Then I started going to Sunday school with my friend's family (who were Baptists). This church was larger, and way out in the boondocks. If you had memorized your bible verse that week you got to take a huge handful of candy out of a bag. Vacation Bible School at my grandparents' church was a similar thing, except that at the end of the week whoever memorized all the books of the New Testament, Old Testament and the most verses got a silver dollar for each accomplishment. My main memory of these experiences is thinking it was wierd that they were bribing us with money and candy (I was thinking this as a child). I was "saved" at age 8 or 9, but was never baptized. My dad doesn't believe in baptism because "when you're saved you're baptized in the blood of Christ".

When I was a kid, my dad had a serious drinking problem. He would get trashed and if he wasn't yelling at/hitting us, sometimes he'd force us to sit there while he read aloud from the Bible, or make us read aloud. When I was about eight we went to my grandparents' house for Thanksgiving and locked our puppy in the apartment (since we didn't have a yard or anything, and it was cold). When we got back the apartment had been shredded. When my dad saw that the puppy had eaten his Bible he took the puppy out back to the patio and shot him with a 12-gauge rifle.

When I was about 13 or 14, I started having serious questions about the inconsistencies in the Bible, and about why it was okay to disobey some of the Bible's teachings and not others. I was not allowed to ask these questions. When I was in tenth grade I started reading Camus and Sartre, Confucious and Lao Tsu, and by the end of high school I decided I was "agnostic". That is, I felt there was likely a higher being in the universe, but not necessarily one who sent Christ as his son to save humans from sin. I was afraid to admit that I didn't believe in God because of how it would affect my family, not necessarily for fear of my own salvation. A few years later, even believing in any higher being or energy felt contrived, and didn't feel like a "natural" way for me to think. It always felt forced. The Big Questions that people often turn to religion to answer were answered by science and math, or by my "faith" in my own ability to make decisions and to determine right from wrong. I don't rely on faith in a supernatural being to guide me, and I understand the teachings of the Bible are parables that can be as easily learned by reading Aesop.

The best Christian I ever knew was my grandmother. She treated everyone with love and forgiveness, as Jesus taught his followers. Even when she was in pain or sick or injured, she always seemed to be smiling, and she wasn't afraid to die.

Once again, Voodoo, you remind me that I grew up in the relative Brady Bunch.

Thanks for the input, and I'm sorry that some people have to grow up in those kind of homes.

Well both my parents are Irish Catholics, my mother was a nun for 6 years though she never took her final vows. Of course I was taken to church every Sunday and as child I really didn't like it a lot. Around the age of 12-16 I took a great dislike to Latin and refused to attend church services in Latin, though I think this was more down to being forced to study Latin for my last few years of primary school rather than some advanced notion that the teachings of Jesus should be attainable by everyone. I had the standard Catholic childhood of going every Sunday to a nice Jesuit church and hearing the standard Catholic mass every week. It bored me but I really saw it as part of life, you didn't question it and they even ran a Sunday school for a while, though I never got too involved in that. I was an altar boy for a few years as well, I got to serve mass with Cardinal Hume one Christmas, and I knew that was a pretty important thing to do. So yeah, I grew up a good Catholic and never really questioned the whole thing. At the same time I never went to Catholic school, my primary school was Church of England and I was in the choir there so once a month I went and sang in an Anglican church (it was very high church though so I barely noticed any difference, as far as I was concerned it was a normal church).

I also had an exposure to fundamentalist/evangelical christianity from about 8-15. My dad got very involved in Alpha (http://alphacourse.org/) and so he'd go along to that and Focus groups. Every now and again the whole family would get dragged off to their main church and we got taken off to a few weekend retreat things. I absolutely hated it, admittedly I didn't really understand everything that was going on but as far as I was concerned I was being forced to spend a weekend in some crappy holiday camp and had to listen to some prat sing badly about Jesus. I suppose in large part this was my Catholic 'indoctrination', like ClydeJr said I just didn't think of any of this as real church. I enjoyed some of the activities we had but I really never liked any of the times when we had to sit around and talk or sing about Jesus.

As I grew up I came to dislike most of the people my dad had met through Alpha, these were all self-professed Christians who had accepted Jesus (including Jonathan Aitken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Aitken), lots of people who had had their lives 'fixed' by Jesus). As far as I could see these people abused my dad's generosity, they were preachy and seemed to do very little to justify any of their attitude. I remember once being lectured by one on the value of charity and good will after I made some remark about how some people didn't deserve help (don't ask me why, I probably just wanted to piss them off) while they were at our house having dinner. It wasn't the first time my dad had invited them over or out to dinner, it wasn't the last and never once did they repay these gestures. I guess these people really left a sour taste in my mouth towards evangelicals and really anyone who wasn't Catholic/Anglican.

At secondary school there really wasn't any religion, we had a lot of Jewish students, CoEs and a few Muslims and Hindus and Catholics. The atmosphere of the school was very much secular, for instance once a month we had a religous assembly, you could choose from Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or non-religous. The latter was by far the most popular. I guess at this point I really didn't go to church as regularly (my dad had kind of stopped bothering with Catholic mass every week and my mum never felt there was any point forcing it on us) and at the age of 16/17 I just realised I really didn't believe in God or Jesus. I really tried for a while, tried to talk to God when I prayed (I think of a few of the happy clappy stories about hearing God had stuck), read the bible every week for a period but I just didn't feel or hear anything and so I gave up. I quickly decided I was agnostic after this.

On to University where I've managed to end up at a college with about 50% christian student body (the college is only a small part of the University, I didn't really pick it on purpose) and I've met a lot more evangelical, happy-clappy Christians now. I've moved my position on a bit and I'd consider myself a sceptical Deist, I think there's some power that caused everything, some logos, but I don't know what it's like or if it's still here. My opinion of Christianity has improved somewhat now, I think there are nice people who are Christians and complete wankers who are Christians. My experience with Evangelical Christianity did a lot of harm to my view of the religion as a whole, it still does. I resent being told I'm going to go to hell or being forced to listen to some bastard talk about how Jesus told him he loved him.

Of the Christians I know now, a few of them are really nice, good people. I can't help liking them even if I don't share their faith or enjoy being woken up on a Sunday morning and asked if I want to go to church. However a friend of mine, studying Theology quite passionately, said if he ever saw any proof of God's existence while at University it was in the actions of some of our decidely non-religous friends. The Christians in college, apart from those few nice ones, never seem to do anything without the ulterior motive of conversion. One guy at college is somewhat bi-polar, he gets seriously depressed, after the first few months of University he got dumped by his long-term girlfriend and went through a few bad bouts. I'll admit that some of the christians spent time with him and did some nice things for him but never without mentioning how Jesus helped them or how He could help him or quoting the bible. I guess I find a lot of them seem to have nothing else to them other than christianity, they spend their time in bible study groups or hanging out with other christians, most of them don't bother talking to me anymore because I've made both the fact that I was raised a Catholic and my beliefs quite clear (as in I wanted to have a conversation with them about christianity, they're side never went much beyond "it's in the bible and it's all about faith.")

I'll make it clear that I know people good and bad, christian and non-christian and in my experience the proportion of good and bad people isn't effected much by whether they're christian or not, though the annoyance factor can be severely increased. I think my early exposure to Catholicism really hasn't effected my beliefs very much, although it has probably had quite a habit forming effect (not like heroin, more like 'I have a shower every morning' habit), I do actually go to church every now and again and I usually enjoy Catholic services. My dad's happy-clappy phase really did give me a dislike of evangelical style christianity, though I feel like many of the people who have been put off religion here that was due more to the people that I encountered in it than the beliefs they put forward (though I also didn't really know what their beliefs were, they were into talking in tongues and that crap for the record. Weirded my mum out and there were a few there that didn't like her at all because she couldn't be 'saved' from Catholiciism.

My mother is very Catholic, so she made sure I went to Catholic schools all the way from K thru 12.  While I was in grade school she'd also make a point of bringing me to church every Sunday, generally against my will.  I was never very excited about Mass because it was almost 100% passive, and almost exactly the same from week to week.  I'd usually tune the priest out and read the missal to entertain myself (I liked reading the Bible passages because they were actually different each week).  The main thing I liked about Mass at that age was seeing my friends from school afterwards if they had happened to come to church at the same time I did.

As for the religion itself, I pretty much accepted it without question until the age of ten or so, at which point grade-school-level religious teachings didn't really do it for me any more, at which point I became fairly confused and agnostic - I knew that I didn't buy into the black-and-white watered-down version of Catholicism that they teach to five year olds, but I couldn't quite figure out what to replace it with.  I read up on Taoism a bit around that time and thought it sounded like a generally nice set of principles, but never got too serious about it.  I got Confirmed in eighth grade along with everyone else despite having some doubts about whether I wanted to make a lifelong commitment to a religion at that point - I still think that 13 is a bit young for it, but in retrospect I can't say it did any damage, and the whole process leading up to confirmation (classes and whatnot) was actually a pretty good experience.

When I was 14 I started going to a Jesuit high school.  Initially it seemed like going to a Catholic high school was going to be a lot like going to Catholic grade school, but I was surprised to find that my religion classes started to include critical thinking and discussion rather than being pure lecture; I particularly liked a class on morality that I took in which we discussed morality as something to be constructed logically from basic principles rather than read straight out of a book.  In addition, some of my classmates came from non-Catholic backgrounds, which hadn't been at all common in my grade school, and some of my classes also involved discussion of other religions, which helped to put Catholic teachings in some context.  I also noticed that the most dedicated Catholics among my classmates seemed to be the most politically liberal, which was a complete reversal from my experience in grade school and made much more sense to me.

My mother stopped dragging me to Mass at my grade school parish when I started high school, but I did end up going to a number of services at high school without prodding from her.  This was a radically different experience from Mass in grade school.  For one thing, rather than the church being filled with mostly strangers and one or two familiar faces, the Masses at my high school were attended and planned solely by students and faculty, so I more or less knew everyone there.

The major turning point for me, though, was the Kairos retreat we took in our senior year.  Without going too heavily into what exactly is involved in Kairos, I'll say that it helped to "gel" a lot of what I'd learned in religion classes up to that point, and I ended up making my peace with God after about seven years of being fairly disillusioned about the whole religion thing.

Unfortunately, after I graduated high school and moved away I never really found any sort of connection like that and ended up "lapsing" as a practicing Catholic - I haven't been to Mass in a few years, largely because going to Mass with a bunch of strangers feels completely empty compared to the experience I had in high school (and I have tried it, it's not even comparable).  And my naturally antisocial tendencies prevent me from putting forth the effort needed to go find a congregration I can connect with.   :wink:

If/when I have kids, I'll probably do more or less what my mother did with me and drag them to church.  Go figure.

Sorry about that overly long post :/

About your post I'd say a large part of the problem I've seen is that for many of the christians I've met that I've disliked, they've seen themselves as Christian first and people second. Everything about their life seems to have to include being christian, whether it's going to church every sunday or having a group prayer before a football match. It's just struck me that this kind of attitude results in an automatic distinction between christians and non-christians, it may be part of a Christmas/Easter Catholic mind set but I don't see why everything in life must involve demonstrating your beliefs. I think a church that organised events for everyone, without talks about Jesus or prayers before having food, etc., would help establish that kind of community feeling you seem to want. Certainly keep the christian issue open, let people ask about it, hope people want to know more but telling people Jesus is that answer and he is the only way only attracts people who are looking for any answer.

Here's an atheist's attempt to help provide a solution:
It's kind of funny, but I found the charismatic service I went to (my grandparents' 50th anniversary/renewal of vows at their new church) was far more annoying then the fire-and-brimstone stuff from the Baptist church of my childhood. But the whole "the wages of sin is death" thing is pretty jarring. I think a good church should be taught by volunteers instead of money being involved (e.g., eliminate tithing), to eliminate that potential source of corruption. Members should be implored to open their hearts and homes to people that they think they should hate. A large contingent should focus on charity events, like joining Habitat for Humanity or something. The homeless should be allowed to use the church's address on job applications, even though it may be construed as dishonest. In other words, the church should strive to be Christlike to teach by example, not by threat of eternal retribution. There should be safe Q&A sessions after the service for teens (an I guess some adults) who have questions that may be construed as too blasphemist to ask. Teens who have questions should be granted confidentiality so that their church can be a haven (not the direct link to their parents).

I was brought up Agnostic. Both my parents attended very strict English (as in in the UK) boarding school. You know, the type where you dont get detention, you get a beating. And it really put them both off. They swore they would never  do some thing like that to me, and while I was growing up, they always explained that to me. I guess I am Agnostic also. I dont believe in the bible or any of the organized versions of god or religion. I do believe there is some thing more out there than Cells and Genes making us who we are in influincing what happens. I dont know. Thats how I feel.

As far as organized religion. Two of my best friends where brought up Mormon, so I ended up attending church with them a few times. Some times because I would spend the night and end up dragged to church on sunday morning. The other times I went was becuase there was a Mormon girl who I was really in to. Anyway. From my time spent in church I feel that a lot of the stuff "preached" is bs. I know Im not supposed to give opinions in this thread, but that was my feeling after listinging to the preacher. I know for a fact organized religion is not for me, and probably never will be. I do feel that while its not for me, some people need "direction" or a feeling of belonging or "some thing more". And church is great for those people. Also, I dont think any organized religion is "bad" or such. I really think the South Park episode hit the nail on the head about religion when they did the Mormon episode. In the end every one told them their where full of shit, and idiots. And they said "We might be, but we are very happy".

*shrug*

I never went.  I was supposed to be Catholic my mom tells me.  I'd go when I would visit my grandmother in Flagstaff, but I always found the Catholic church stuff really, really boring.  The sermons could be entertaining, but the singing and ritual crap was just very tedius.  I think my parents intented us to go, but they asked me at age 6 (or was it 8, I know it was an even number age, just not 10) if I believed in God and I said "no".  I honestly believed in Santa Claus longer than God. So, naturally, my response to, "would you like to go to church" was the same answer.  I was a good kid, always had been, and thus they respected my decision for that.  My parents didn't force religion on any of their children.  My sister takes her kids to church (her husband is a very devout Christian), my brother believes in God but doesn't attend church (I think he's Christian, not sure), and I'm the lone godless heathen (my wife's favorite term for me).

Best Christians I've ever met.  Catholic priests, by far.  They had a great sense of humor and were very nice to me as a boy/young adult (please no innappropriate jokes).  They were old, goofy men that were fun to hang around and just had a great rapport with everyone.  When we woud visit my grandmother (she worked for the church and lived in the connected house), the head priest would take us on hikes, we'd go out to eat at the only decent restraunt in town, and he'd take to cool museums and the such.  He did all of this knowing full well we weren't good Catholics.  He really didn't care. I also liked his sermons.  They were always very relevant, uplifting, and well written.

Picking out the worst Christians I've ever met is a complete tie.  One day I was back from college visting my parents and a new video game like Diablo or Diablo 2 had just come out. So, it was kind of late and night and I drove to the local Comp USA to buy it.  I notice some teens pull up right before I did.  They look completely normal, in fact they looked like there were about to head to a party or something.  I go in and buy my game with it's demonic imagery all over the box, and then head out.  They strike up a normal conversation outside the store, and I play along until they bring up the J word.  As I roll my eyes, tell them goodbye and walk off, one of them yells, "don't you want to save your soul? Don't you care about how much Jesus loves you?" 

Another annoying Christian would have to be this girl I met before my freshman year of college.  We got along really well and she started dropping hints that she wanted to be more than friends, inviting me out to parties, etc.  One night she invites me out for a walk around campus, we have a nice long talk, then the topic of religion comes up.  I tell her I'm an atheist and she flips.  I think one of the last things she said to me was "Don't you see how much Jesus loves you? How can you just ignore that?"  It all made me want to vomit.

Really, I've never had a problem with Christians that call me a heathen or tell me that I'm probably going to hell.  I just have a problem with the ones that assume I haven't thought my stance through, and that I'm some sort of moron for not believing.

My father came from a Spanish/Filipino Catholic background. My mother came from a Catholic family (I guess) and also went through some Catholic schooling before HS.

As a young child, before my parents divorced and moved back to the east coast, there was a time I went to Sunday school every week. I don't remember having any particular feelings about it, but I do remember going for donuts afterwards.

When my parents seperated, my mother, for a time, tried bringing me to the Southern Baptist church that our good neighbors went to. I remember her liking it, but as I found it excruiatingly boring, I only had to go once or twice.

When I moved back to the east, my mother stopped attending church. I would have to go every now and then with my father when I visited him, which stopped after he remarried. It was your run-of-the-mill Catholic church, and very boring to me. I specificly remember one part of a sermon where the preacher was talking about Fort Knox. I thought the whole thing was stupid.

As I was growing up, most of my close friends went to church every week (most Catholic, with 1 Lutheran). It was quite a hinderance to all of us, actually; all-night gaming sleepover deals were troublesome, because they all had to go to church on Sunday morning.

Anyway, as I got older, my views and beliefs shifted from uncertainly to outright disbelief and rejection of anything any organized religion had to offer. I just didn't "get it," or see the point in religion. These questions that people supposedly ask, about if there is a God, or what happens after you die; these things simply don't cross my mind, and I really couldn't have cared less. I would get the occassional "you're going to hell" spiel, but I wouldn't actually care.

As I went through HS and college, I learned more about not only Christianity, but also the other religions of the world. The more I learned, the more disgusted I became with the followers of Christianity I had met; on the whole, to me, they just seemed intolerant and  ignorant of anything outside their little bubble of existance.

Though one person in particular in my life breaks this mold, and tha would be one of my history professors. PhD from Johns Hopkins, fluent in Latin and Greek (and probably German), has a DD from Princeton Seminary, and is an ordained minister (I want to say Prespetyrian. Regardless, some of his stories from those days are funny). He may be a Christian and a believer in Christ, but he refuses to accept anything simply at face value. Instead, he tries to prove these things with historical evidence (though I skipped out on the course on Historical Christ he taught this past Spring). I have nothing but respect for this man.

Unfortunately, most devout "Christians" I know are ignorant douchebags that do nothing to change my view of them, or their religion.

BTW, my time in Rome was the first time in about 10 years I had stepped inside a church. I jokingly feared that my heathen body would spontaneously combust upon entering the Vatican City.

My parents are both athiests, though I didn't know that until I was in my teens. I've never been to church in my life apart from a few weddings and a baptism (don't do funerals, sorry, I grieve on my own terms), and none of those for a while as I tend to just go to the reception and nobody has minded so far.

My main interactions with organized religion have been the religous classes, called scriptures (don't know if you guys have them) where a religous person would tell us about god and jesus and such-like during school. Now, having never been exposed to religion I didn't know what to make of it all. My parents said that they would give me a note to get out of those classes if I didn't want to go but I could go if I wanted. Since my friends went to them I figured I might as well stay with them. During these classes, I'm not sure when exactly, the idea that people who don't believe in God go to hell filtered its way down to me. As a young child the idea of being sent to hell for eternity was naturally frightening.

I didn't believe in God. They'd go on about all these stories and yadda yadda but it never seemed right to me. But going to hell... that's some pretty fierce motivation to believe right there. When I would think about God and whether I believed or not I would always come to the conclusion I didn't but would always suffix the thought with "if you are real God I'm sorry". Eventually I would come cry myself to sleep many nights thinking about how I might go to hell for not believing. Nobody else knew about it but I was very depressed for a while and genuinely afraid of hell for a long time. We're talking years of pre-pubescent doubt and fear.

Eventually when I matured enough to be sure of my convictions I decided that I didn't believe in God period, and that Hell was a fantasy. I'll never forget those years of doubt and fear though. So yeah, every time I think of organised religion I think of the effectiveness of their little fear-tactic on my young psyche and get... shall we say, a little annoyed. My parents never influenced me one way or the other beyond what influence "believe what you want to believe" can give. It was only after I was mature enough to have a belief and be firm in it (and they knew what I believed) that we even talked about religion.

I don't have a problem with people who believe, it really isn't my business. I DO get very annoyed when people try to talk up their religion to me, but I can control the outburst because I know that most are genuinely trying to help (save my soul, etc, etc). I also get VERY annoyed when people try to change laws etc based on religion because it's basically pissing on everyone who doesn't believe as they do.

To me the best christian is the kind of person where you go to organize something for Sunday and then are surprised when they say they have church. I like that people can have a core belief and yet not feel the need to shout it out to the world or force it onto others. There are many religous people in my family and other than the jesus-on-crucifix in my grandparent's room (now THAT is a scary fucking image) and the occasional invite to weddings/etc at churches I wouldn't even know it. I like that.

That's basically me and religion summed up. I'm about as anti-religous as you can be without being a violent loony, so nothing short of God materialising in front of me would change my beliefs and I'm more than likely to give Him the finger if He did.



Semi aside: Funnily enough I also consider organized atheism to be very amusing and a little disturbing. I guess it just strikes me that many people use their beliefs as a staging point to give other people grief and/or feel elitist. Doesn't seem to matter if it's religous or anti-religous people just gotta be assholes about something. Reminds me of those xbox/ps2 forum wars the kiddies get into.




Exactly, the "you're going to hell" stuff totally ruined any opportunity the church had with me. I was never made to feel that here is what we believe and it's fine if you don't why don't you take a look. It was always this is what IS, take it or go to hell. How can they expect me to consider what they say when they cannot give my beliefs the time of day? It's too late for them now, but it didn't have to be that way.

EDIT: Also, it feels very old to me. I can't quite place my finger on it but I always felt a bit of a devide from it all even when I wasn't sure of my beliefs. It's like when I read Lord of the Rings when I was little, it felt old. And whereas I like that kind of feeling coming from a fantasy novel it just doesn't inspire me to feel a part of an organisation. Hard to explain but I hope you get what I mean.

A couple notes to add:

I'm actually not all that against organized religion, I seriously studied Buddhism and considered becoming a practicing Buddhist for a while, but decided that I liked everything but the dogma/prayer.  But organized Christianity did, does, and likely will strike a negative tone with me for the rest of my life.  Whether that's the bullshit I dealt with in high school (being compared to murderers on a daily basis makes you bitter), my resent towards the "youth group" I was in for some fairly underhanded techniques in, let's say, "getting them while they're young", or just my irritation at the religion as a whole I can't say.  But the word "church" strikes a negative tone with me and I can say with as much conviction as anyone my age can claim about their future, the day I turn to organized religion will not see me in a Christian religion.

My girlfriend's parents are quite Christian.  They're also from Mexico.  The culture in which my girlfriend was raised (Texas, but the part of Texas that's basically Mexico) is about 70 years behind the times.  Her parents are better than that, but after nearly five years of being together they're still not happy when she comes over to my house because it's "inappropriate".  "People will talk" is something they actually say.  NO.  PEOPLE WILL NOT TALK ABOUT THIS.  NO ONE GIVES A SHIT, I ASSURE YOU.  Uh, I got distracted.  So yeah- the rules of tradition are binding them to unreasonable expectations for their children, and I can't help but feel a bit of resent for those rules and their source because of all the grief they've caused the two of us.

I'm kind of a weird case. My dad's agnostic and my mom, while having a catholic mother and a protestant father, didn't raise any of us 3 children as christians. After 1989 when the Commie regime crumbled in Hungary, she had us baptized and attend 'theology classes' (basically Hour 0 from 7am to 8am every tuesday, kinda like sunday school in the US?). All three of us became devout catholics after that, joining the scouts, doing altar service at Mass, receiving the Eucharist and Confirmation (? I only know the Hungarian names for these), attending all sorts of youth programs, etcetera. I even won a bible competition once as the 'champion' of our church.

So why am I a cold-hearted semi-agnostic now? Well, oddly enough, our mother was the one who kept skipping Masses and such; the problem as she explained it (and I tend to agree) was the community itself. Our priest was an absolutely awesome preacher (and very much unlike the stereotype -- he was famous for his collection of Stephen King movies, for one), but the leaders of the 'community' were an extremely uptight and obnoxious bunch, quite a few of them being members or supporters of the local extreme right. It all got a lot worse during the 2002 elections when the catholic church openly supported the 'family values / conservative' party even going as far to put out decrees "strongly urging catholics to vote for the proper party" that must be announced by the priest at the end of the Mass. This further incensed the extreme right-wingers in the church and when all sorts of after-Mass speeches about abolishing Trianon, etc. started popping up, I figured this wasn't what I originally came here for. Politics shouldn't ever be a topic in the church imo, but this wasn't the only reason I left.

That was also the time when the church took a combative stance versus a lot of things; when I talked with our priest, he said (deadly serious) that "the internet should be banned". He then went on to say how all global media could be a great vessel for the Evangelium, but instead it's "wasted on filth", which I kinda violently disagreed with. I also disagreed with people sending anonymous letters to the priest saying "you are not fit to be our spiritual leader". Come on, what kind of Christian sends anonymous hate mail and what do they expect from it?!

So yeah. I dunno what really broke the camel's back, but I do know I stopped going to Mass in 2002 or so. Haven't been to church since. I suspect it was my father's occasional comments about how "the church tells you what to think instead of thinking for yourself" that got to me after the hungarian catholic church started the crusade of banning 'offensive' cartoons like pokémon, dragonball z, etc.. and they succeeded. Hey, those cartoons sure hurt my brain and my faith in humanity (who watches that crap?), but banning? Jeez. :P


Looking back, my situation was pretty much what Paelos wrote in reply #25 (I started writing this post in a separate window, occasionally reading more posts from the thread), but I don't want to delete all that inane crap I wrote. You all have to read it all and SUFFER. :evil:



-- Z.

Hugely religious Catholic family, hated it, kicked out of Catholic school, refused to go to church at 13 much to my mother's chagrin, got an education,  Atheist.

Maybe those should have been semi colons?

Oh... about the topic... my experiences with organised relition were crap.  Catholicism makes absolutely no sense to me at all... in fact, religion makes very little sense to me, regardless of what flavour it is.  Catholicism is at the top of my "Religions to Fuck Right Off" list, however.   

There's nothing an organized religion could do to bring me into it's fold. Nothing.

I have serious intellectual difficulties with religions in general, and christianity in particular.

They really are all the same, man. Not that I'm trying to defend Christianity here. Like I said, I'm a Christian myself, and even I can't stand "Christianity". Lol......But I've seen many of the same traits in other groups --- religious and otherwise. Doesn't matter.

I also forgot to mention that my Dad is/was semi-Agnostic (not necessarily....it's just that he doesn't really care either way) and my Mom a Theravedan Buddhist. This probably (besides my own experiences with various churches and groups) seals the deal as far as how I view Christianity and how it relates to me as a whole.

Quick background on my family; my parents divorced when I was around 2, and both remarried, both having a second kid with their new spouse.  My dad who I like a good deal isn't religious.  My step-mom enjoys going to church, but I have every reason to believe it is because she enjoys being social and for appearance sake, not because she has any real belief in God.  I lived with my mom and step-dad, neither of whom was particularly religious growing up.  We rarely went to church, and religious matters were never discussed much one way or another.  We said prayer at dinner, until around the time I was a teenager and we started eating in the living room infront of the TV. 

My first run in with the church is when I dated (for as much as that word is applicable) a Catholic in elementary school.  I wasn't Catholic so he didn't want her to date me, but relented because he was impressed with me; at the ripe age of 10, I could give him a firm handshake.  Go figure.  I was still annoyed  by that stance though, and took it as a personal insult.  It just rubbed me the wrong way, as sort of a "if you don't like me, then I don't like you (the church)" thing. 

The second big incident is when I got into D&D.  I was, I dunno, 14 or 15, and to me it was just a neat game.  I had a friend of mine whose parents were strictly religious, and they wouldn't let him play.  Got lots of "so do you worship demons too?" from religious-minded kids, which earned a resounding "huh?" from me.  So at this point I get somewhat curious, and ask around as to why everyone felt it was so horrible.  I never did get a satisfactory answer, and the piss-poor reasoning on the side of religious activists turned me off entirely. 

It was about this point that I decided I was an athiest.  I'd never really considered the question prior, but when it was pushed on me, I went with the direction that made the most apparent rational sense.  No one in the religious camp could form good arguments, and it seemed far too easy to fire off arguments they couldn't address.  I was frequently told "you just have to have faith".  And I did - that they were full of it.  Probably not what they meant.

The last big change is when I was 19 or 20, and it was the understanding that a scientific approach could be applied to religion - any religion.  You can't normally quantify it in the way that you can mix chemicals in a test tube, but you can qualify it.  Historical, textural, sociological and other analasys can be brought to bear to deal with the questions.  For me this was just an extention of the debates that I was involved in at the time and for the several years prior, with the evolution vs creationism debate to pick a big one.  What I started to wonder, was that since science was consistantly brought to bear on arguments against religion, why isn't it applied on the side for it?  Or rather, could it be?  This wasn't so much as a case of "trying to prove religion" as much as it was wondering what you wound up with if you applied rational thinking toward religion instead of actively against it.

It was toward that end that I took several high level religious courses in college, to include non-Christian studies.  One of my professors, an Orthodox Christian, was one of the best instructors I've ever had.  He would always try to start the class off with a statement that would piss off fundamental Christians, like "God does not exist.", then go on to qualify it.  He was to a point inflamatory, but what he did was to challenge people to think about /why/ they thought like they did.  I have come to feel he best illustrates what a Christian should be, because he has done the best at trying to make people think about their relationship with God.

The worst Christians I've met would still be fundies, because whether intentional or not, their goal is to not let you think about God.  Thinking is verboten, and these are some of the most mentally bankrupt people I've met.  I would describe the people who lead fundie churches as almost predatory in nature, and no better than a Tom Cruise clone.  For too many people, they are failing to answer the very basic question of "why do you matter?", and it shows in the lackluster support many have toward church.  Hence, many decide that they don't.

Grinded lvls already at age of 7? :D

More seriously, things like that is pretty disturbing and unethical in my mind, and it seems very common to reward kids with candy and other things and get them to learn the bible in that way. To me it just sounds like brain washing the poor kids.

All of my relatives are christians but nothing more than that. No one in my family has ever actively been going to church. When I grew up I pretty early got to know about the bible and christanity, but it never intrested me and that was perfectly fine for my parents. Highly religious people is pretty rare here in Sweden, the majority of the population is christian and has had about the same experience as me, atleast that's the impression I have.

However, there were one guy which was in the same class as me when I grew up. I don't recall his exact religion but his family had a certain fetish for the bible, and it gave him a lot of problems in school. He didn't have what I would call a healthy view on the world as it is today, he didn't know anything about sex, drugs, alcohol etc except that it was bad and you were going for a 1 way ride to hell if you came in contact with it. He was often bullied and people often made fun of him. I don't know what the school subject is called in english, but it's where you get to learn how to cook and take care of a household, anyway the teacher had us taste diffrent fun fruits and spices from all over the world. Afterwards one guy tricked this religious guy and said that one of the spices actually were drugs, the religious guy became terrified and ran home crying. He also had problems with learning certain subjects, and it felt to me as a part of the problem was that he was to close minded, which often seems to be a product of religion.

I think it's stupid to belive in something which can't be proven to you. I'm not denying that there might be a god but if he doesn't want to show himself then I'm not going to worship him. I don't see anything good coming out of religion, just wars and people wasting their lives in churches/mosques. I'm planning on living the rest of my life without killing people etc and doing what I find right, I don't need a religion for that. Out of all the religions I think buddism seems like the best option though, the Dalai Lama also comes of as a very wise leader.

Mostly had issues with how too many people in churches appear to believe in the moral authority of the church, as opposed to that of the God. Too many statements made in terms of 'x is true', insufficent use of 'I believe x is true, here's why'. Got bored, didn't go back.

The modern Catholic vs Orthodox tension seems particularly absurd in that light. And I guess I still have some sympathy for those parts of the Anglican communion who are learning over time not to sweat the small stuff, and to waste less time focussing on the region between waist and knee.


/agree... but admittedly based on *very* limited knowledge.

My family went to church almost every Sunday up until I was 12 or 13.  We went to a Presbyterian church in Bay Village, near Cleveland about 10 miles from my house.  From my current understanding of Presbys, they were quite liberal for that branch of the faith. I never felt any real connection to the place, and dropped out of Sunday school at around age 9 or 10 in favor of going to the 'adult' services.  I enjoyed the sermons and singing much much more than the silly arts and crafts with a biblical slant.  I dalled with the teen church group at around 12, but they all knew each other and seemed more interested in talking about Jr. High than anything else, so I wasn't that trilled with it.

I don't recall why we stopped going.  Part of it was my dad losing his job, I'm sure.  I think more of it was that it had just felt to my parents like it was something they were obligated to do.  That obligation faded as we started to get older and would get pissy about going (4 kids over 8 years, of which I was the oldest) so we stopped.  We did Christmas/ Easter for a year or two after that but even that stopped.

I don't go now because of several reasons. The biggest is that my philosophy doesn't jibe with organized religion.  I do believe there's a creator, becase like the old quote goes, I see the marvels of the world all around me.  However, I think we were put here to explore and understand those works.  Organized religion has always seemed to me about easy answers and stifiling the exploration of the mysteries of the world we've been granted.  Platitudes that stop you from having to think and crucially examine situations and their intricate consequences.  This is Good, that is Bad as absolutes because of ancient mandates rather than because of an understanding of what makes them good and bad. (And yes, I believe in absolute good and absolute bad and right vs wrong.  "Shades of grey" is bullshit as well.)

Organized religion also reinforces the "Us vs Them" mentality that has the good chance of destroying us as a species.  We are good because we believe this, you are bad because you believe that.  I am good and 'more holy' because I am a holy man, while you are bad and 'more profane' because you are not.  Ghandi is going to hell because he wasn't a Christian (Yes, I've been told that) while Pope Pious, or even Hitler could be absolved and welcomed into Heaven by confession or 'accepting Jesus' in the last instant of their lives. Utter crap.

I also think there's no way a man can ever know an ultimate creator's mind.  Religion tries to do that on a macro scale, and that's just not right.  "The world was created in 7 days." Great.. what's a "Day" to an eternal being.  How are they going to explain that length of time to a man who doesn't have a concept of a number greater than a few hundred, or even 0.  That's the kind of dichotomy the Bible was written through if you accept it as the true word of God.  Religion ignores that as if it weren't a factor.

Plus, I don't think it's right to make-up my kid's minds for them.  When my daughter has questions I answer directly and honestly. (And she's almost 7 now so the hard questions have been coming up recently.) But I know for a fact most people don't see things this way.  She's come home from school several times with some rough questions after some Ky Bible Thumper has tried to make-up her mind and force her down a path of Baptism or Catholicism.

As for the 'worst' christian' I've met.  It was a whole family.  It was the family of the girl I dated in High School for my Jr. and part of my Sr. year. They were very openly devout, praying before all meals, the display of the crosses and had an active social life in thieir church.  None of this bothered me in the way I know it would have some people with a blinding hatred of religion.  I even went to church with them and put-up with the disapproving looks and the lectures about the Metal I listened to.

While I wound-up sleeping with the girl, she seemed pretty upset about the whole affair after each time it happened, but she never wanted to stop while we were dating. (And a few times afterwards) Over the course of the year I learned some stuff that just seemed so Hypocritical I couldn't resolve it.  The mother had some kind of affair with someone high-up in their church, the eldest daughter had gotten kicked-out of the Baptist college she went to for getting caught sleeping with someone (which we weren't allowed to discuss, her sister told me to explain why I had to be less touchy-feely --hand-holding-- around her parents.) and the girl I was dating had an abortion about 9 months before I started dating her (she only told me because the father had been one of my high school friends, and the rest of my guy friends had said she'd better stop lying to me or they'd tell me.)

  I was floored by each revelation because these were things they all were pretty hardcore against and spoke openly about how bad other folks were for doing them.  This is probably what started my final break with all things having to deal with organized religion.  If these people could be so hypocritical and think they were so superior simply because they went to church on Sundays, how could that be right? I started pondering the nature of man and their own relationship with their creator and following the path of a greater morality.  I still ponder these questions because it's an ongoing evolution.

This is pretty haphazzard because I did it in an hour over lunch, and if anything I'm verbose and my mind jumps from idea to idea way too quickly without fully explaining them.


Buddism seems like a great 'way' of religion, but I disagree about Nirvana being the ultimate state.  I think there's more for us than Oblivion after our souls achieve an enlightened state. Oblivion is too 'gothy' and angsty a viewpoint.. Buddah must have been on his teenage reincarnation when he came up with that one ;)

Norway has a Lutheran state church, and most people are members - passively. In fact, up to a few years ago, the church didn't keep membership records but simply subtracted people registered in other churches and faith organizations from the general population and called the rest members. But not many people go to church; the "free" churches and missionary orgs are far more popular among the actual believers.

I was raised in the countryside which is generally less secular than the cities, so I went to church when the school class did, and got a Lutheran confirmation because that's what you did unless you wanted to stand out.

But at age 14-15 I realized I was an atheist just going through the motions, and left the church. Or, at least I thought I did. But back then, only the local clergy office you "resigned" at kept a record; a lot of people walk around believing they are not members, but are still counted as that. Neither of my parents were keen on religion at all. (I think my father was atheist, and my mother is perhaps agnostic. Not sure.)

Bah on state churches. Sweden is supposed to "un-State" their soon, if they have not already. Not much chance of that happening here, since the Prime Minister is, well, a minister, and the dominating social democratic party like their "People's Church" because they can control it, which has lead to things like kicking out anti-abortion ministers and ordaining female priests and bishops.

Let's try to stay on topic, folks, and answer Paelos's question.  If we all just post our own stupid opinions and then respond to each other's stupid opinions in turn, this thread's level of stupid will grow at an exponential rate.  It's pure mathematical fact.


:cthulu:

You'll find douchebaggery anywhere. As I said above, my Mom's a Buddhist, and has been one all her life. That doesn't mean she doesn't have similar complaints as anyone who questions Christianity (or whatever). I think some of the appeal of Eastern stuff to Westerners (and not to take away from the value of the original teachings themselves) is a lot about "the grass is always greener on the other side". It's about boredom. Because if it's mysticism and enlightenment people are looking for, then they'd value it no matter where it's pokes it's head out of.

Anyways....Back to the point...I've seen firsthand how some Buddhist monks can cause a bit of trouble and irritation of their own. I've seen them do similarly questionable things as Pastor Joe Blow. There's good and there's bad, as with anything. Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists, plumbers, locksmiths, beany baby collectors, you name it.

And as far as "Buddhism" goes, it's not all the same either. There's dozens of sects and factions of Buddhism. There's not very many all encompassing factors within the different sects Buddhism just as much as there isn't with Christianity. To their credit though, they haven't had a history of religious war like Europe and the West has.

Born and raised as a swedish Lutheran ( AKA the "God loves you, doesn't care if you love him back. So long as you regret your sins and don't object to the idea when judgement day comes, your ass in going to heaven" way of Christianity) due to my mother being a priest. Confirmed in the monestary of Taizé.

Didn't think much of the church or the religion during my teens, at most I enjoyed pointing out anything christian sects wrongdoings to my mother.

Theese days I study at the university and pay my bills thanks to the part-time job I was given in Lunds Cathedral. After having worked there for a couple of years my outlook on christianity has once again taken a turn. I am not a hardcore beliver in anyway but almost daily I see the church becomming a place of refuge for the stressed, the mourning, the poor, or thoose who are just lonely. So theese days I am very pro-christianity (So long as it's a christianity that focuses on making peoples lives better, not thoose whacky sects that pop up every now and again). It's also a blast to hear a bishop tell jokes like "What's the similarity between christmas ornaments and a catholic priests balls?"*.




* Just for show

Yea but I mean more about the teachings. While I do find a lot of things in the bible to be good, there's also stuff which I consider to be bad, no sex before marriage, no female priests etc, lots of stuff. While I don't know everything about buddism I did some research in school a bunch of years ago and it all seemed very sensible. And Dalai Lama > pope in my opinion.

And to go a bit on topic again, a more welcoming church would be a church -all the religious stuff, but then I guess it wouldn't really be a church.

I'll just topline it.

Every church I ever went to more than once and tried to be a part of (this includes Baptist and Assembly of God churches) could not tolerate questions about the Bible. None of them could. I don't mean "Is the Devil really God?" or some stupid shit, but just useful questions like, "Why?" There could be no questioning of the beliefs the church was teaching, none. Any questions were eventually met with "You're going to hell if you don't believe exactly this way."

My college was a 4-year Presbyterian college. Not only did I get the above (and was forced to go to Chapel and listen to preaching every Tuesday), but I almost got my scholarship taken away in an underhanded manner. See, I had the grades and the test scores to get the Presidential Scholarship, of which they only gave 2 a year. Full tuition paid, but didn't cover books, dorm fees, etc. First year I live in the dorm and my parent's pay for it, along with Pell Grants. Second year, I decide not to live on campus and just stay with my parents, since the drive wasn't that long and it would cost less. The school, who has hired some kind of financial consulting firm to keep them from losing money, decides that they want to yank my scholarship, it was too expensive. When asked for a reason, they claim it was because the scholarship required me to live on campus. But, nothing I'd ever signed, nothing I'd ever been told, hell, not even the college catalog mentioned this. They tried to claim it was an unwritten rule, after which I told them they could shove unwritten rules because no one could enforce them. They caved, but it was a solid month of bitching back and forth before they did.

That made the pattern of dealing with "religious people" and institutions later in my life make sense. Anytime someone tries to get me to do business with them without contracts because they are a "Christian man" and thus won't fuck me on the deal, I just don't work with. To paraphrase Burroughs, I can't trust them, not with God on his side telling him how to fuck me in the deal.

Every church or church organization I ever attended during the time I had hair down to my shoulder blades gave me the look of "what are you doing here?"

I remember one Sunday school teacher guy flipped out when I simply started asking him to clarify what he was teaching. I wasn't even asking "Why?" type questions....More like: If such and such is the case, then why does this and this passage say this?....etc., etc.. I wasn't badgering him or nothing, just trying to get involved in "what" he was teaching. The old dude got so frustrated that he just clenched his teeth and whispered to me "Don't back in me a corner, little boy." Heh. Ummm...OK? Shouldn't he be happy that someone's interested enough to talk about these things?

I don't think he was there to "teach" so much as he was there to just get off on the idea that he had authority.

I did go to church with my grandma (the awesome one) a couple years ago, as a class assignment (world religions- the assignment was to go to an official religious gathering of a religion to which you don't belong).

It was... boring and awkward, mostly.  But they didn't make me feel unwelcome, and they didn't flip out when I passed on the communion (the inner smartass was telling me to say I had a big breakfast, but I avoided that) or even give me a dirty look, they just went on to the next person.  So overall it was a nice place, just really not for me and not something I'd want to do once a month, much less once a week.

And yes Buddhism has plenty of dogma and "organized" problems like any other religion, which is why I decided it wasn't really for me in the end, and I don't really believe in the mystical side of it all, but I think, of the religions I've studied, it teaches the lessons with which I most agree and I try to emulate their values in my day-to-day life.  And Nirvana isn't so much Oblivion as it is transcendence, Oneness, a removal of the illusions and fractured personalities dragging you a hundred different ways- basically it's the same as Heaven, in that you simply feel content, the difference is that it's not because your desires are fulfilled, but because you no longer have desires, and you're not a separate person from the rest of the souls like people imagine Heaven, you become one with all, including any "god".  I know it's off topic but this font is smaller so that makes it okay.

I dated a boy from a Christian family in high school, and went to church with them once (I think it was a Foursquare church). They sang "There's Power in the Blood of the Lamb."

'Nuff said.

That was pretty much the big thing that changed between my grade school religious education and my high school religious education.  The people teaching religion at my grade school were for the most part completely unequipped to handle real questions and discussion, and many of them probably would have reacted the way you describe.  Almost all of my religion classes in high school focused on discussion, and no questions were out of bounds.  It completely changed my view of religion to find out that it was possible to have rational discussions about it with my peers rather than just having platitudes handed down by cranky old people.

All well said, but I had very little exposure to Christianity when I was at grade school age. The thing that's funny about that story is that I was 18 when it happened. And needless to say, if he hadn't been an old man, my reaction probably would have been something different than just laughing about it.

Ok just to help me out, lets make a little summary list. If you could do it, give me the top five things that bother you the most about organized Christian churches in order. Then, give me the top five characteristics you think a ideal Christian person should have. Thanks!

The only teacher to ever use violence against me, was our local priest who literally kicked me in the ass at the annoying age of 12 for asking too many question. The school board realised shortly after, that just because the guy was a man of god, didn't mean he was good with kids.

Just like Norway and Sweden above, we have a national Lutheran church which any kid with at least one parent that is a member is automatically a member of. So that's something like 90-95% of the population. None of my parents were members, but they messed up so I was... until I got my first paper route and I got the tax papers saying that theoretically I was to pay 1,7% in church tax (in theory only - I didn't make enough to pay any tax). I knew by then, that I didn't belive in the Christian god.
I also knew more about the bible and our countrys history with christianity than most of my so-called christian friends.
I think a state chrch is a bad idea, not only for the non-members forced to pay to said church (even if you opt out of church tax, you still pay the priests wage, because they're government employees and pay for upkeep on churches because they're historical buildings) but also for the church itself - a membership of a church you don't seek, but have to actively opt out of breeds indiffrence, which is why no Danish church is EVER full unless it's christmas.

I've been to plenty of sermons (I try to educate myself and keep an open mind), and they leave me cold. Too many funerals by priests, that never knew the dead person, and sound like they're just going through the motions and might as well have worked in a factory. One of my friends nearly became a priest, before he choose journalism (5 years of theology) and we had lots of talks/discussions. He never convinced me, but made me think. He died young and his funeral was in a packed church and very moving. That was his church, he came there regularly and the priest knew him - that was a meaningful and moving ceremony, where his faith played an important part.

Some CHRISTIANS are truly dedicated, and I respect that - I don't support the Red Cross, but give my charity to the Danish Church Aid, because even though they use 1% to do missionary work, they still manage to get a larger percentage into the hands of the needy than any other foreign aid organisation (I know people working for Red Cross - it's a good business to be in). That's what I think of, when I think of true Christians (not being more hung up on banning condoms than saving lives).

Top 5 things that bug me about organized Christian Churches:

1) If you do not believe, you are going to hell
2) The idea that if you even THINK of doing something bad (the whole lusting after someone is the exact same as actually having commited adultery or fornication)
3) The boring, rote ritual of the whole thing. Spiritual enlightment should excite people, not bore them to narcolepsy.
4) Spirtual enlightment should excite, but it should not cause you to commit overt, bombastic acts to prove your worthiness, like speaking in tongues, handling dangerous fucking snakes, or running up and down the aisles of the church screaming "Praise God! Hallelujah!" and other indecipherables (2 out of 3 of these things I've actually witnessed).
5) Tolerance for other religions and cultures should be the very first thing on the agenda. Also, as a community, church should be more about discussion, akin to philosophy classes in college, than about one preacher and his choir man telling you like it is.

Seriously, the biggest problem churches have in actually fulfilling their mission is that they do not encourage DISCUSSION. Church services should not be gigantic, rehearsed affairs with singing at the appointed time, followed by prayer at the appointed time, etc. They should be roundtables, where people are encouraged to talk about their religion. Sunday schools are atrocious, especially those for kids. I've never been in a Sunday School class where just discussing the Bible was encouraged in anyway other than "it's completely and utterly true without any embellishment or imperfections."

Many of the Christians I know cannot separate their belief in God from an absolute belief that the Bible is the unaltered word of God handed down through generations and completely as God wants it to be shown. They completely refuse to acknowledge the possibilty that man might have had a say in what that book says.

1. As with any influential organization, a church will attract people who seek power and position for its own sake.
2. There is, as others have pointed out in the thread, little desire for theological debate, at least in the non-Catholic denominations.
3. Churches presenting Christianity or the Bible to kids censor a lot. Not just cherry-picking what passages to present, but even omitting central parts of the stories they do choose. E.g. avoiding the whole "our daddy offered us to the mob, let's thank him by fucking him and produce sons" part of Lot/Sodoma/Gomorrah, or ignoring that Onan wasn't spanking the monkey.
4. There are simply too many sects and variants. How can one choose? At least they don't call other branches for evil satanists any more. Often.
5. There is already a new version out, Monotheism version 2.5, codename "Islam". Which fixes the bug where suddenly one God was three, and the other bug where Jesus was God's son instead of just an important prophet. And which users of Monotheism 2.0 don't like. They liked their bugs thank you very much.

For characteristics, pick any five of these:

Matthew 5:3 - "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:4 - Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Matthew 5:5 - Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.
Matthew 5:6 - Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
Matthew 5:7 - Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Matthew 5:8 - Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
Matthew 5:9 - Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Matthew 5:10 - Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:11-12 - Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven."

You could "apply a patch" from version 2.5 though. They have five pillars; these are the testimony of faith, the daily prayers, fasting during Ramadan, giving "zakat" to the poor (2.5 % of wealth seems to be the norm), and the Hajj. As a Christian you won't get to Mecca or Medina, but you can substitute with a visit to Rome, Betlehem or Jerusalem. As for fasting, early Christians did that leading up to Christmas anyway.

I'm not sure what to write about churches atm, so I'll just touch on characteristics:

An ability to see the value and wisdom in other things besides Christianity. Even the Apostles and Saints could appeal to people's senses in all kinds of ways. They were well rounded individuals, and not so one tracked. And Christianity wouldn't have even gotten off the ground in the first place if it wasn't essentially syncretistic.

A person who doesn't try to back their personal bias with the authority of God or Christ (i.e. D&D is evil, long hair is evil, Elvis is evil, liberals are evil, whatever...etc., etc...). It's no surprise that a lot of people hate what they've experienced from Christians --- They should. A lot of what "church folk" teach is irrelevant, and mostly offensive, nonsense.

A person who doesn't see every non Christian as a "mission field" (slightly related to point 1). Someone who doesn't even try to preach even if the subject of religion comes up. Someone who just talks and hangs out like a normal person, and even when the subject of religion comes up, talks with people, instead of to them.

Someone who doesn't mainly see God as a source of power (naturally, the idea of "God" entails power -- I'm just saying that it's the focus and emphasis of things that changes how people behave).

Simply put: A nice person.

Ideal christian person
1. Understand that others doesn't have the same belif as he do
2. Relating to the first, don't try to force your belifs on me
3. If he's a beliving christian then he should live by the book, else he's just a hipocrate

Might add a 4 and 5 later when I come to think of anything

I pretty much agree with everybody else when it comes to the church as an organization. I'l try to add a few though.

1. A lot of the values from the old scriptures simply doesn't work in todays society, women for example comes off as nothing more than the servant of the man

First the negatives on organized religion:
1.  The singlemindedness - doesn't matter the denomination (or even the root religion for that matter), organized churchs naturally lead to groups of only like minded individuals who make unwelcome different opinions.  Doesn't even have to be outright "you don't belong here" crap; it's not hard to make people feel uncomfortable or unwelcome just by not being friendly to them.  So people who don't toe the accepted views usually go elsewhere they feel more welcome, or simply keep quiet and as a result get very little from attendance.
2.  The passivity - as many have said, if "going to church" is nothing more than listening to someone else lecture, it's just not very effective.  No discussion, unless you happened to get some from a good Sunday School class.  Hard to really learn from that enviroment.
3. The formulaic nature -  While most Christian churchs follow the same service each week, the catholic churches heavy reliance on archaic ritual drove me nuts as a kid, even when learning the "whys" of the various parts of the Mass by going to catholic shool from grades 7-12.  I could see a Monty Python skit of a mass coregraphed by a gay dance instructor now ... "and one and two now Kneel! two three four Stand! two three four Sign of the Cross! two three four...".  That being said, I also know other people who find the regularity extremely comforting in that they know they could go almost anywhere in the world and find a church where they could take part in a familiar service.
4.  The stasis - let's face it, we all know people hate change, but in terms of religion people seem to hate change a LOT more.  I could actually combine poinst 1-4 into an overall theme in that organized religion just doesn't seem to evolve and grow much, not matter what demonination.  Do people really think of their religions "that's it; it's perfect, let keep it just like this forever"?  Churches don't generally change; they might split and some people go off to form their own slightly modified version of what they just had, but the pace of change is less than snail like.
5.  And finally - the people.  Not everyone to be sure, but every church I have ever been too has always had it's share of idiots and jerks, hypocrites and troublemakers, power hungerers and attention seekers.  And THAT, more than anything else, is what is wrong with orgnaized religion.  The people involved generally suck.

The irony of course, is it's really no different outside of organzied religion, it's just by the very nature of it's organization, it makes it very easy to spot.  I'm not anti-organized religion so much as I am convinced human foilbles spoil 90% of any well intentioned activity with more than 15 people invovled.

As to top 5 characterisitcs of ANY person
1: Patience - without a doubt #1
2. Kindness - caring about others to the point of action, not just words
3. Forgiveness - will need to get exercised LOTS (see point 5 above)
4. Ability to listen - really hard to learn when your mouth is always open
5. Selflessness - it's amazing how much evil and rotteness is purely an outgrowth of man's inherently selfish nature

As a general sum up: don't get caught in the trap of throwing the baby out with the bath water.  Since we know any human institution will be flawed from the get go, throwing out all organized religion (no matter what kind) seems rather short sighted.  Remaining unclear about your own spiritual beliefs or just saying "the hell with the lot of them" b/c it's easier than dealing with the negatives that go along with the positives of any religion/worldview could be a rather selfish attitude.  Have you ever considered how YOU could shape someone else's spiritual decisions?  People learn from each other; it's a two way street.  Spirituality is the same way; generally, you get out what you put in...

The above has been brought to you by the "Church of People are Broken, but Still Better than Blow up Dolls..Mostly"

Xilren
PS As a side, I think the reason a lot of agnostic parent either do or will start bringing the children to some form of church is both cultural pressure, and the search to find some way to teach morality beyond just themselves



 

Mine are mostly the same as Haem's list, so I just copy+pasted the ones I agreed with and changed the ones I didn't, also changed up the order a bit:

1) If you do not believe, you are going to hell.
2) Sticking to rediculous, outdated, and/or impossible ideas/ideals simply because it is written, instead of just shrugging it away as a corruption of the text by man.
3) Tolerance for other religions and cultures should be the very first thing on the agenda. Also, as a community, church should be more about discussion, akin to philosophy classes in college, than about one preacher and his choir man telling you like it is.
4) The boring, rote ritual of the whole thing. Spiritual enlightment should excite people, not bore them to narcolepsy.
5) Spirtual enlightment should excite, but it should not cause you to commit overt, bombastic acts to prove your worthiness, like speaking in tongues, handling dangerous fucking snakes, or running up and down the aisles of the church screaming "Praise God! Hallelujah!" and other indecipherables (Benny Hinn, you're a crock, GTFO my television).


As for a list of the perfect christian's attributes it's pretty symple:

1) Don't try to make rules changes outside of your church based on your beliefs, all you are doing is telling me you want to control me.
2) Don't wear what you are on your sleeve, someone who defines themself and/or their life based upon an organization or belief system has problems. In other words, I should be able to know you without knowing your religious beliefs.
3) "Practice what you preach".
4) Don't look down on others simply because they are not part of your cliche.
5) Don't tell me about your religion. If you stand around with bibles that's ok, but don't approach me with them. I'll come to you if I'm interested, I can see you there.

Raised in an extremely loose, somewhat Christian environment. My parents both classify themselves as Christian, but neither has actively participated in church since childhood.

As a family, we only went to church for special occasions and occasionally at the behest of my grandparents.

Like most, it seemed cool enough until I started getting old enough to start asking questions about it. Nobody ever had any answers or seemed at all prepared to handle any sort of query, and so the first seeds of doubt were sown.

To escape the miserable state of public schools in Georgia, my parents worked their asses off to send me to the best(academically speaking) private school (K-12) in the area. The teachers were fantastic, however most of my classmates came from extremely sheltered, very rich "old South" families who were unsurprisingly extremely conservative. The attitudes of most of these people really grated me for quite some time, though it wasn't until highschool that things really came to a head.

There were a lot of new kids entering our school in 9th grade, many of whom I became friends with. We were vaguely "altie" in nature, mostly in our musical tastes. We were pretty far from wearing outlandish attire to school, I think the most "controversial" anyone got was putting punk patches on their backpacks and wearing a metal stud bracelet., it was more that we listened to "weird music" and didn't really seem to go along with the rest of the general population of our school. One of my new friends publicly declared his atheism, and within the week he was being glared at in the hallways, threatened with physical violence in the bathrooms, told he was going to hell, and so forth. It was at this point that my group of friends surfaced en masse as having been agnostic/atheistic for quite some time.

Things eventually settled down, but it really left an ugly taste in my mouth about the supposed virtues of acceptance that these people were supposed to be following. Obviously, these people shouldn't even be considered Christians in reality, but I think this is the sort of thing that comes to mind when I think of organized religion. The best Christians I knew were the ones who hardly went to church, or didn't make a big deal out of it if they did. Their faith was a private thing, they were secure in their connection between them and God, and they weren't at all bothered if I didn't agree with them. They didn't stop hanging out with me, or give off a phony/condescending attitude about it. I didn't want to fight them about it, in the way that I often wanted to fight with the closed-minded idiots at my school because I knew that they couldn't defend themselves, although we did sometimes have some interesting discussions just to further our understandings of each others point of view. It was a thing of mutual respect, not any sense of "you're going to hell because you don't believe!". To me, it was just cool and refreshing to see people who were secure, happy, and comfortable in their faith (not running around looking for stupid unrelated things they could do to show how "Christian" they were like beating up atheists in the bathroom).

On a slight aside, I'm strongly against the idea of "youth groups" that so many churches employ. I tagged along to a few of these meetings just to see what they were all about, and they seemed very much to be about 'brainwashing' kids while their minds were still young and malleable. In general, I've found that a lot of people never really stop to question the things they were brought up to believe, and I always thought it was a pretty underhanded practice. It happened a couple of times that people we knew were advised by their youth group leaders to stop hanging out with my group of friends because we were seen as a "dangerous influence". At worst, we were slightly angsty teenagers who were getting a little carried away with the idea of our own intellectual superiority because we didn't believe everything we were told. That didn't last too long, we got over the whole being angry at the religious establishment thing and mostly mellowed out without changing any of our core beliefs on the subject. It was during then, towards the end of our time in highschool, that we really got pretty upset about youth groups.

I know that they're ostensibly about showing kids that it's cool to be Christian, but it always seemed to me that it was just a thinly veiled attempt to keep control over these kids at the one time in their life that they're most likely to start having questions about their faith. And it's not like I mean this in the capacity that these youth group leaders were prepared to help with answers, they mostly just tried to confuse the issue or redirect them to some other distraction.

I've recently learned that some of my relatives used to be atheists but slowly turned around and started going to a Unitarian church. Since then, I've gone to their church a couple of times, and it seems like a cool place, a good exchange of ideas without the guilt and the condemnation and the politics that I usually attach with organize religion. If I were mentally compatible with believing in something through faith alone, that's the sort of church I would want to attend. Even though I'm not, it's still something I enjoy attending every once in a while.

Problems with organised christianity:

1) Lack of discussion. I'll agree 100% with everyone who has said that churches need to be able to deal with people asking searching questions, it should be allowed and people should even be encouraged to think critically about the Bible. I know it's easier for pastors and priests to tell people it's a matter of faith but discouraging questions always makes me think that maybe there just isn't any good reason for some of these things. This point doesn't come from my own experience with church (mine's mostly been Jesuits) but from meeting evangleicals or fundamentalists who think questioning the literal truth of the Bible is akin to sucking at the teat of Satan.

2) Every soul is sacred. I dislike christians who's one goal in life seems to be the conversion of others, I've found this mostly with young evangelical types but it seems to be encouraged by many religous groups. I hate feeling that these people do everything with the underlying purpose of scoring one more soul for their religion. I'll admit that sometimes this can be a feeling that reading bible passages helps you when you feel down so it's only natural to tell other people to turn to the bible for help, I can also understand telling people about what you consider to be something important but I often get the feeling that many christians do good acts more to convert people than to do good.

3) One dimensionalism. I understand that religion for many people is an important thing but I don't like churches or religions that encourage believers to start viewing themselves as a christian first and themselves second. I don't like it when people are spending all their time studying the bible with fellow believers and going to church groups, cutting themselves off from anyone who doesn't believe what they believe.

4) Stupid over the top crap. Like Haemish said, when religion makes you decide to start sticking your hand in a venomous snake's mouth something is fucked up.

5) Politics. I don't think this can be avoided when you've got more than two people doing something but I really hate the politics in churches. My experience is my local Catholic church where my mum's quite good friends with an older couple that are very involved in the parish and a lot of the completely non-christian asstardery that goes on would be enough to put most sane people off organised religion for good.

I should point out that boring rote services didn't make my list at all because I don't mind them that much. I see church services as a kind of meditation, you don't need to be actively stretching your brain all the time on particular things, it gives one a period when you can actually empty your mind and calm yourself, I also really like choirs and good old fashioned hymns The moment I hear an acoustic guitar and an excited service trying to 'connect' to me I'm gone.

Also on people being told not to talk to other people by church leaders, one or two people at university have told me that other christians told them not to talk to me, since I'm a (studying) philosopher and will poison their minds. It made me laugh when I heard it but the more I thought about it the more I wanted to find out who had said it and smack them just for being a retard.

Since I mentioned earlier in this thread that I was confirmed in the Taizé Monestary this thread would be a partly fitting place to write this, just read that Brother Roger founder of the monestary has been stabbed to death during the tuesday evening service by a romanian woman. As I mentioned before I am not really that much of a beliver theese days but the memories of Taizé and brother Rogers sermons still bring a smile to my face. So he will be my example of what a good christian should be, someone who stands up and makes an effort to bring about peace and understanding.

Pity that he like so many other great men ended up murdered.

She stabbed a brother in a church? That's awful and sad. I'm terribly sorry.

1) Belief in the organization and hierarchy rather than in anything meaningful.
2) All or nothing labelling - you take it all or you aren't really 'one of us'.
3) Excessive focus on what goes on below other people's waists in situations that don't affect anyone else one jot.
4) Assumption that involvement in an 'organised' religion buys a pass that says 'I don't have to justify the way I judge you because it's in line with 'what I believe''.
5) Petty legalist approach to what is written in books that have been retranslated countless times already by people with no real understanding of the original context and often under severe political pressure.

The christian traits that are most important? Not doing any of the 5 things above I guess.

Dang, i forgot to put "Sense of Humor" in my top 5 desirables.  Generally speaks, zealots don't have one...

Xilren

Lengthy and late, typical of me.

Part the first:

I'm another casualty of postmodernism; I wasn't ever forced to attend any church, and assembly in organized religious functions was not important to either of my parents except in one regard: My mother used our Episcopalian church as free singing lessons, after joining the choir.

Our Episcopalian church is a wonderful place. I certainly enjoyed it, and my favorite part was the communal meetings after church on Sunday where the adults stopped being boring and went to a lounge where free drinks, tea, and classy snacks were provided for free -- everyone would hang around for a long time and chat with each other. Episcopalians are the reason why I like tea so much today.

I suppose I'm agnostic. I have no idea whether a higher power exists. I do not believe I have the capacity to prove or disprove much of anything to myself. I always wonder, thus, I ask questions that I likely will never have an answer to. I will never pretend to have faith where none exists, feeling this disrespectful to the faithful.

Two years ago, I made the observation that there was probably a lot of guilt involved in the story of any of my buddies being forced to attend church. Classic story, latchkey kids, single moms, bad families, all waning in their own observance to church functions. They had made the professional and independant decisions to not attend church for any one of a number of reasons; apathy, busy schedule, so forth. Yet the guilt imposed on them from earlier generations that were far more rigid in attendanc practices ...? Apparently, it lingered.

It'd happen to my childhood friends without warning. Anywhere between them being ... say, 5 or 14, the parent(s) would evidently have that guilt trip spring in their heads, followed by an almost out-of-the-blue campaign where bewildered JT/Preston/Ronnie/Kayla/etc would suddenly find themselves getting a talk about how it was very important for them to attend church, with a few weeks or months of mandatory attendance coupled with an attempt to inject religious morality and lessons into home life. Many would spuriously introduce religious practice and ritual prayer into activities like bedtime or dinnertime. Many recall, at some point, a variation on the theme of "We just felt that you were ready/it was important for God to be in your life."

These campaigns wavered, then faltered, at the hands of the plenary dissuasion and discouragement techniques that seemingly every child posesses. As is typical of those not rigorously involved in religious involvement and reinforcement from very early childhood, most would drop out given the slightest hint of optional participation.

The best Christian I ever knew is the head guy of St. John's. Father Raul. Humble, giving, soft spoken, accepting, caring, total turn-the-other-cheek. He's basically the sort that acts as a direct contrast to those practices discussed in the Harper's (http://www.harpers.org/) article "The Christian Paradox: How a Faithful Nation Gets Jesus Wrong" if one will pardon the potentially ideological can of worms opened by both this concept and by any such position or discussion endorsed by a magazine such as Harper's.

The worst Christian I ever knew was hardly an endorsed figure of any religion; he was Christian in name only, as far as I was concerned. He tried to assault me after I asserted that the Founding Fathers of the U.S. were Deist, not Christian. If I were to cite a better example, it would be from the Christian youth group from Colorado Springs who we went paintballing with one day. Kids from age 18 to 12. Arrogant, forceful, eternally justified, holier-than-thou. They would revel in self-sanctified hubris as we won matches, proclaim loudly the favor they recieved from God, the righteousness of their every action. The one in particular I could single out would be the one who openly advocated the deportation of homosexuals, among other things. That they didn't have a right to live in God's country.

Part the second:

1. To hold to a level of faith that demeans or prosecutes inquiry or wonder; the aforementioned 'lack of discussion' element.
2. Using the pulpit for ideological indoctrination, or to any way implicate God's favor for the benefit of political interests.
3. Manipulative, almost codependant immersion techniques used to assure indoctrination in the very young to 'keep the faith'.
4. The use of religious beliefs to justify attacks on pluralism.
5. Asserting the religious element of personal beliefs in order to say that this means they don't have to be justified or rationalized.

'Good' christian traits are not something I'd want to classify offhand. I personally observe that each generation teaches christianity in a way that integrates it with what values are important to them, so .. you can't stop religion from changing. It was not too long ago that Christianity was used prominently to justify racism.

Responding to the 1st post:

I went to mass a number of times. Two things come to mind: "Sheep" and "Going through the motions"

As for my own experience with temple (Jewish): "Networking" and the burden of guilt.

Again, all good responses. Thank you.

The final question is a simple and very complex one that you might need to expound upon as to the "why" that I think we are all looking for.

The question is, is the church fixable?

Top five issues with the christian church

1)  Intolerence for other views.
2)  Ignorance is propegated, while open mindedness is stifled.
3)  Wealth and Power are cornerstones
4)  Judgement against the community
5)  Those damn pews.

I don't think the five positive reflect my view of what I see as christian values, but as human values.

1)  Humility
2)  Honor
3)  Wisdom
4)  Fortitude of Spirit and Body
5)  Courage

I have an answer that is not intended to be tounge in cheek.

Did you find Stigmata (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145531/) to be a horror movie in the classic sense, or a horror movie at the state of the christian pathos with a tinge of hope?

Again, I am being serious.

I'd have to rent it, as when it came out, it never appealled to me. So to answer I have no experience with the film.

A very complex question really. I haven't given too much thought to it as yet (working, kinda, sorta, maybe) but it has a lot of variables. First thing I'd have to say is define "fix". What what would be the ultimate goal you'd be working towards in this quest to fix the church, and in what way is it broken (as in, what objective is it not achieving).

If it is to be wondered if an institution is to be fixable, I'll guess that this entails that it has potential good in combination with recognized problems.

Disregarding that the concepts of what is good or bad for the Church varies between people and groups, all such institutions are fixable.

In the case of the church, I'll reference that I think that each generation of Church authority alters biblical authority as it sees fit; the church generally mutates as it absorbs the values inherent to altering cultural worldviews. No institution is immutable, no institution is static. Anti-homosexual agenda in Christianity, for instance, I believe to be doomed. it's only a matter of time. We've already seen the death of racist agenda in Christianity. Young-earth creationism is also faltering.

I'm not sure if that was a question for everyone or just Paelos, but I didn't see it as a horror. I'd sound insane if I went into all of it, but suffice to say, I identified with the main premise. Wash away all of the Hollywood embroidery, and I was very much in a similar position as the before/after periods of the girl in the story.

As for the circumstances and what exactly happened, no, I didn't have stigmata or anything. Nor did I bounce off walls or turn my head around 360 degrees. It's just that I didn't exactly become a Christian because I decided to have faith. "Faith" and "belief" had nothing to do with it. Not at first at least.

That's kind of the point. I offer no definitions as that becomes semantics. If you want to define fix in your way, please do, but it's meant to be a broad question inspiring many different points of view. I don't mean to be dodgy, but I think if it nail it down to what I think I don't get new answers I would never think of.

I'm lazy.  Behold a link to a relatively close post I made on the subject elsewhere:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/valatar/771.html

I haven't read this thread beyond the first post, and I may not read it.

My family initially attended a Disciples of Christ church in Eureka, IL.  Grandma is still a member of the Kahoka MO DC, and it has always been a pillar of her life.  For me, it was a place that I had to put on a suit and tie to go to once a week.  I hate suits and ties, and I hated them more when I was little.  I didn’t care much for the sermons, either.  The people there didn’t mean much, one way or the other, but the thing I always remembered was that each of us boys had to have a quarter every Sunday, so that when they passed around the little cardboard church in Sunday school, we had something to put in it.  My family didn’t have much money, and it bothered me that I had to give up a quarter to a bunch of relative strangers just because it would embarrass our family if we couldn’t.  That always rankled me.  On the other hand, they had a lovely building.

I don’t know why we stopped attending services at the DC church, but I was happy we did.  It was never more to me than an annoyance.  However, it didn’t set me against Christianity.  It took the Christians in Roanoke, IL to do that.  Mind, there were Christians in that community I respected; Apostolic, Mennonites, Catholics among them, but there were also a lot of hypocritical and proselytizing Christians who put me off the whole faith.  I can respect a person who is a witness for their faith by living it, but people who witness for their faith by telling you what is wrong with how you live your life can get stuffed.

Meanwhile, my family had begun attending a new church, the Universalist Unitarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalist) church in Peoria.  The minister was a former Catholic priest who had married one of his flock, and had a bit of a drinking problem.  A fair number of the parishioners were cheating on each other with the spouses of other parishioners.  The youth group advisors were post-60s hippies, and in Sunday school our curriculum was Rock Music, Sex Education, and Situational Ethics.  It was as awkward a collection of misfits and malcontents as you could hope for, and it was the happiest place I ever found.  My brothers and I all found a social and moral setting we’d been looking for, and real friends and common interests.  The church was beat-up and rundown.  Nobody asked us for money.

Although I am theologically a Taoist, I am denominationally a Universalist Unitarian.  I consider it to be a church with Christian roots and heritage, and I do not consider those to be diminished by the church’s acceptance of other belief systems.  I see no reason to limit the Divine to a single system of human beliefs.  If the Queen can believe six impossible things before breakfast, I see no reason that God couldn’t do them.

I think the thing that most traditional Christians do that most offends and annoys me is the casual assumption that not being a Christian means you have not experienced true faith.  That, and assuring you they will pray for you, which is generally a lie, since what they really are going to do is pray for someone they want you to be, and not for the person that you are.

That’s the short version.


Edit:  I decided to read the thread, and I have a couple of things to add.

In fairness, while I never warmed to the DC church, when my mother died this winter, my brothers and I turned to the ministers of both the Eureka and Kahoka DC churches to speak, although none of us (nor mother) felt any real affinity for the church.  We felt that the christians among the family and friends who knew mother deserved some connection to her life and her passing, and these men did good service for us, even though they understood that we were not of their faith.  I have known others who would have done less.

As to whether the church is fixable, I question that it is broken.  Core to church is community and connection.  I do not think that any one faith can serve all of us.  Naturally, this is in part my own faith talking, but I think that a spectrum of religion is what is needed.  One size does not fit all, and it shouldn't.  Whether it is the Mennonite and Apostolic biblically centered churches in the place I went to high school, or the Diciples of Christ church that gave my grandparents so much of the structure and meaning in their lives, or the eccentric and liberal UU fellowships that have comforted me, all churches are communities, and as such they cannot be entirely inclusive, or they will have no meaning or coherence as a community.  This is not to say that churches should not examine the way they treat others outside the faith frequently and critically.  However, churches must have principles for which they stand, and shared experiences and beliefs that bind them togather.

In the sense that any system is fixable if it wants to be fixed and has the time to do it, yes.

Realistically?

No.  It will never happen.  There are too many people with too much to lose.  And some people with their heads just far enough up their own asses to think their religious beliefs ought to dictate the way our society is run.

1. Hypocrisy. (Thou shalt not kill, adultery, graven images, etc, etc...but just say a few hail mary's...not to get into catholic priests and boys)
2. Exclusivity. ("Our God is the only real God, Jesus is the only real prophet, everyone else dies in eternal suffering")
3. The backward thought process in which things must match the scripture, unlike science which draws its conclusions from available facts.
4. Tangential to the last one, the belief that their beliefs are directly from god and infallible (like the pope  :roll:), whereas science is predicated on the knowledge that most of our current understanding of science will be superseded by new discoveries in the future. Cherishing the heretics, so to speak, for they are science's prophets.
5. The need for money.

I don't buy into your whole religion thing, an ideal christian would follow things a bit more along the lines of forgiveness and sacrifice, but here's what I think embodies a spiritual person:

1. Respect.
2. Kindness.
3. Humility.
4. Honor.
5. Passion.
I don't know that it's broken. It does work for some people, I just have no use for it, and nothing could be done to change that. I'd like to see humanity divorce their personal spirituality from archaic humanistic institutions. The world would be a better place. When I think of how many cultures were crushed by christianity alone..."converting" "heathens"...that whole thing about two unique language types being found in south america would be a glaring example of what I'm talking about...good thing they survived the conquering christians...

Oops, after reviewing some posts, I forgot Tolerance and Humor. I struggle with the former, but embody the latter. Both are critical, Tolerance being the core of my political beliefs (Libertarianism).

1) Most churches (or people) do not allow themselves to be intellectually challenged.  Whether secular or theological, churches need to be willing to take up the challenge against any position they hold.  Christianity (or for that matter, Islam and Judaism) is about one's relationship to God, but too many churches are stuck with a grade school mentality towards it.

2) Failure to effectively justify dogmatic stances.  I don't care if it's anything from "don't steal" to "homosexulaity is bad" to "wear purple hats on Fridays".  The burden of proof is on one making an assertion, and while the assertion may be valid, it needs to be communicated effectively. 

3) Church service is boring.  I can't sing, and won't unless I'm trying to aggrevate my wife or entertain my daughter with terrible parody.  Changing gospel to gospel-rock doesn't help; it's still not relevant to me, and I don't want to tithe for entertainment.

That's just three, but I would be happy if they could even start on that.

Potentially, yes.  Any problem is fixable, because we're the ones causing it.  Realistically, probably not, because human nature is such that it doesn't often allow for such change.  For any criticism of the church you can make, it's difficult or impossible to skirt the issue that the congregations allow or support such attitudes.  People don't want to think, don't want to work, don't want to fix.  What they do want is to do the minimum possible to earn a ticket to Heaven, and/or social appearances of such. 

And this isn't a religious exclusive item; it's the same poison that hits all social spheres.  Politics is stuffed with it.  Business thrives on it.  Culture is built on the back of appearances and hype.  Religion, by its nature of higher orders and higher ideals, is in a fight against human nature.  Human nature, in turn, finds religion an easy target for ever having the audacity to say "thou shalt not..." anything.  Humanity exists as a minimally contained explosion, and religion is trying to douse the flames.  Good luck when it doesn't want to be put out.  It's much easier, instead, to water down religion to the point of uselessness.  Sugar coated religion is cheap Soma. 

Highly subjective of course.  I'd be careful even using the word church in your question b/c that itself has it's own implications (i.e. which, of the thousands of flavors of christianity, do you mean?),  If you ask me if organized religion as a whole is fixable, I'd say no, not as a single entity.

Best you could shoot for is a plethora of kinds of organized religion that practice tolerance and understanding towards each other version...which sadly ain't gonna happen, humans being what they are.

Put it this way, even if somehow tomorrow every Christian began practicing true brotherhood towards their fellow man, there's plenty of other religions that still wouldn't thus this the problem of organized religion being broken would continue...

That being said, any given version of church is certainly improvable, but you have to have people willing to change first, and most simply are too lazy and selfish to want to change something they like (or at least tolearate) currently just to make someone else feel good.  How do you think the average congregation would react if their priest/minister/rabbi/etc next sermon began "you're all doing this wrong.."? 

Xilren
PS The short answer is most would decide to replace the speaker with someone who tells them what they want to hear rather than engage in true reflection and soul searching on their beliefs

Dislikes
1) "The way we worship is the correct way."
2) If I don't go to church for 6 months, I don't miss anything because the service is 85% the same every time.
3) Passing the money plate during the service just blows my mind. It is designed to shame people into giving.

Christian qualities

This would just be a list of what makes someone a nice person - friendly, non-judgemental, etc.

Embuggerances, in order of annoyance:
1) Evangelism - trust me, YES, WE HAVE ALREADY HEARD THE GOOD NEWS.  :wink:
2) Self-righteousness
3) Intolerance (especially since this is what seems to lead to violence against gays, people of other faiths, etc.)
4) Hypocrisy/selective following observance (I dunno, but I kinda think it should be all or nothing in the "what parts to heed" department)
5) Ignorance

S'alright by me (what churches should promote or represent; qualities Christians should strive for):
1) Brotherhood/fellowship - in the human sense, not just among other Christians
2) Charity/asylum
3) Acceptance/understanding/forgiveness
4) Humility/modesty/humbleness
5) Flexibility/adaptation - being era-appropriate

What really gets me about this, actually, is not so much when they interpret the Bible... but when they refuse to acknowledge that someone else's interpretation is just as valid.  Like the people who hate gay Christians because they're disobeying the Bible, but have no problem disobeying plenty of other rules in the Bible (meat on Friday trivial and giving to the poor non-trivial alike).

That pretty much answered my questions fully, and I thank you for that. Let me say that as a Christian man, I'm not the best representative. I don't live the life I should either, and as such I try not to preach at people about things that I struggle with.

This community is a special thing whether or not you realize it individually. You are all from different viewpoints and different places, and yet inside this box we can fellowship together without ripping each other's heads off. That's rare in the real world. Frankly, many people wouldn't even get past the simple things of life without writing off the other as a nutball in whatever fashion they happened to disagree with. I enjoy hearing your sides, even if I don't agree. I enjoy our fellowship, even if it stirs up a hornet's nest.

As stupid as it may sound, my model of a good church has a base in what we have here. Take a look around and you'll see why.

Heh

Heh, this thread reminded me of the first sermon our new priest gave in the church. He said a lot of people had come up to him and said, "Father, we know you'll be looking to make improvements in the parish and that's fine with us but we'd really like it if you wouldn't make any changes."

In some ways that's the problem with organised religions, it's not that people don't like improvement, it's that they see change as something inherently bad and so essentially different from improvement.

Well, yes. That, and change doesn't alway mean improvement.

Excuse me but I really don't need to know what everyone here looks like.

/nightmares

 :-D :mob:

Evangolis had a good line up there: "Core to church is community and connection".

I could accept that the church had a value in society if this really was what it was all about. I could accept a church that was really about supporting and connecting the community. You won't have that though until you take away the all the red tape (doctrine) that seperates the various denominations.

The church is way too hung up on the particulars of how to worship to ever effectively deal with problems in the real world.

This of course would never happen. There are numerous denominations because there have been numerous oppinions over the years as to the "right" way to have faith. The splitting of the church is probably also affected by the political ambitions of people as well. Didn't get to be the boss of the No Homer church? Start up the No Homers church. I know I'm oversimplifying here, but that's just the easiest way for me to explain my views.

Religion should be about helping and supporting your fellow man, regardless of whether he lives his life exactly the way you do or not.

Most fundamentalist churches I've known have been entirely about community, which is part of why questioning the faith is so threatening to them.  The faith is not a philosphical or theological issue, it is the common touchstone that binds the community together, a set of customs and beliefs that is safe ground even for relative strangers.  An example of this comes from the Masters thesis of Mr Sutter, who taught high school history in the community I went to high school in.  The Apostolics in that community do not beleive in Original Sin, thus all children are born innocent, and only need the Salvation of Jesus as they discover true wickedness, generally in their teens.  Sutter found that you could chart the conversions of young girls to the church (these are fairly dramatic events, involving being possessed by the Spirit, publically speaking in tongues, and adopting strict standards of dress and conduct afterwards), and when you charted the conversions, it became obvious that groups of friends tended to convert in a domino effect, with one friend converting and the rest soon following, generally in order of closeness to prior converters.

I've seen similarly powerful group support systems in other places and faiths.  My grandmother is one case of a person powerfully supported by her church community, both in her active life and in particular, since she suffered a massive stroke.  Churches can have great benefit for members.

Unfortunately, if you are not a member, such tight-knit groups can be fairly hostile.  Thus such community can be a double edged sword, and it is also open to abuse by cults and other unethical persons and groups.  Community can be a great and terrible thing, like most sources of power and strength.

Been inside a church five times in my life, and four of them were funerals.  I vaguely recall a couple women whom I would later realize were Jehova's Witnesses coming over to talk to my mother, but I couldn't have been older than five and eventually they quit coming around.  Other than that, no religious exposure whatsoever.

Now the fifth time, there was this girl I worked with for whom I had developed a bit of a crush.  She was UBER-religious, but wasn't really a pain in the ass about it or anything.  She'd bark at me when I said 'the H-word' from time to time, but she didn't flip out when she found out I didn't believe.  To be honest, I think she considered it a bit 'daring' for a nice Pentacostal girl like herself to hang around with a heathen like me.  Anyway, it's December and she asks me to come to this church thing with her.  Some manner of Christmas pageant.  Alarm bells go off in my head, but I figure what the hell.

So we get there, and it's cool.  Nobody was speaking in tongues or anything.  (Though that was something she had made straight-faced reference to in the past.)  Some kids did a little nativity play, the goat tried to eat a wise man's robe, I mouthed along to a couple of songs I didn't know the words to, and everyone had coffee and pie/cake/cookies/etc.  Really, it was a nice scene.  People chatting, kids running around, really nice atmosphere.  I got the impression that my crush was hoping I'd want to come back.  But the "impression" was all I ever got, because she wasn't pushy about it.  Good times.

And really, of course I wanted to come back.  It seemed like a great place.  But you know, I couldn't shut off the analytical part of my brain.  This story about the god-figure who defies death was never going to seem like anything except yet another myth to me, barring some tremendous worldview-altering supernatural encounter.  I just plain couldn't believe this fantastical story without some bloody good evidence, even if I wanted too, and just going through the motions was unthinkable.  I'd be betraying myself and lying to them.

So this girl and I just sort of drifted apart over time, and I started dating this other girl.  We spent two months debauching ourselves, with never a peep from her about religion, or any indication that Sunday was anything but another day to hang out.  One night the topic of religion finally comes up.  Figuring that since we were catching our breath on her living room floor at the time, she must not be the type to give a shit, I went ahead and told her I was an atheist.  Oh boy, bad move.  The relationship ended shortly thereafter, when I told her I had no interest in her out-of-the-blue attempts to convert me.

Doubleyoo tee eff.

As far as fixing the church, it depends on whose perspective we're coming from.  From my perspective, it's all bunk.  Just give it up entirely and find a different reason to hang out.  From their perspective, there's nothing to fix.  They're having fun.

Unless you mean the tribulations of the Catholic Church in particular.  But then their problems are more a matter of policy than theology.  Just let the priesthood marry so that you can start drawing more healthy non-pedo adult men into the mix.  Really, if you made it so that being a doctor meant no marriage/family/pussy ever, you'd probably have a disproportionate number of pedophile doctors too.

That study right there just demonstrates that the whole "conversion" is total bullshit. The pastor/minister lays out what it means to "find God" and then the congregation delivers. How can any rational person not become immediately circumspect? The religion is a demonstrable farce. Not the people's faith, the religion. Jesus Christ would be horrified by such dramatics.

Let's say someone new moves to this town and starts attending church. After several months, this person decides they have been saved and asks the pastor/minister for baptism. Does the pastor put that person on hold until he figures out he is supposed to pretend to speak in tongues?

Science suggests that Humans, by and large, are very good being sociable within intra-group relationships, but hostile toward inter-group relationships.  Note the first isn't required to be a social species, as demonstrated by chimps, who are mean as hell to their peer group.  What our disposition does is to creat the "Us vs Them" mentality so prevalent in everything we do.

Any social group, religious or otherwise, is going to become subject to that rule of behavior.  That's why you have the appearance in many churches that they are great if you're a member, but somewhat cold, "off", or distant if you are not.  Recruitment for social groups often becomes less one of open enrolement, and more of a "friend of a friend" nature.

The other result is that social groups become, by their nature, more and more extremist in attitude over time.  Whether this be in a "holier than thou" attitude in a church, "tow the party line" in politics, or whatever else, social groups often become self-reinforcing in the "Us vs Them" mentality.  On the flip side, if the group fails to have a collective "We", it may fail to become cohesive and may break apart.  You see that in organizations that grow too quickly and "lose sight" of their goals.  Getting it right is extremely difficult to do. 

My suggestion, incase you need any, would be to pick up on something like this when trying to answer any sort of "is it fixable" question.  If the church is in any way broken, it is because of human behavior and disposition.  Most of the problems people cite with the church are issues that if strictly keeping with theology, shouldn't be a part of the church.  Yet, they plainly are; why?  Human nature.  Any potential solution should be viewed in light of whether it addresses the actual problem or just symptoms of it, and to do that one has to know what the problem(s) is to start with. 

I'm no moderator, but I'm pretty sure this kinda talk has no place in this thread. Just sayin'.

The question assumes that a serious attempt is given to the answer, beyond something like "more communion wine, plz".  To answer whether it is fixable requires you to know what is broken, and why.

I'd disagree that the conversion is bullshit, regardless of the sincerity of the actions, since the behavior changes that follow really are life-changing.  More, while it is easy to look in on something like this with a jaundiced eye, I know from my own experience that belief in both philosophical and spiritual ideals can make seemigly silly rituals very real to those involved.

As to other entry routes to the church, there are those as well.  Many young Apostolic men became hellions before settling down.  One fellow, Kieth, as part of the court settlement for speeding (140 mph, but Kieth told me that he knew the radar guns didn't scale beyond 120), evading police, and a bunch of other traffic offenses, sold his car (a lovely Chevelle) and joined the church.  (He also had more standard penalties applied, although this was in a rural area 30 years ago.)  He did in fact settle down and became a good churchman thereafter.  This was not an uncommon path for teenaged boys to take into the church, and I did not find these guys to be insincere in their beliefs.  For the Apostolics, such conversions tended to be dramatic, life-changing events, but the drama was optional.

As long as the drama is optional, I have no problem with conversions. However, if the drama is optional, then those that choose the drama should be even more suspect. The point is that a spiritual conversion (versus a religious one) should be about a change within yourself, not something pursued so your community oooo's and aaahhh's and pats you on the back. Ministers should be encouraging sincerity, not me-too-ism.

I agree in principal.  However, if for as far as the minister or anyone else in the church community can see, an individual walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck... what are they going to do?  If drama is a normal occurance for spiritual conversions, then how do you know if it is sincere or just me-too-ism?  The matter gets even more complicated when you consider that modifications in behavior can lead to changes in your attitude, so is it always bad if someone plays out a role to start with? 

Children, for example, start life as moral heidonists, and utterly lack the ability to consider actions with an eye toward altruism.  Their parents, if good, are likely to not support this and reinforce notions of altruism and thoughtfullness by forcing them to say "please", "thank you", and "would you like one?".  Not that a church member is a child, but that a would-be member might take on a similar role with the intent of similar changes. 

How do you differentiate between people who are sincere, who are trying, or who are really just doing it just because?  Or worse, how do you pick all of them out from the people who are simply out for social gratification and don't care or are secretly hostile toward religion? 

Interesting enough to have been written with sexlife as the metaphor for spirituality... ;)

This is how too many people are about "church".  They can't seem to make the logical next step to realizing it's only about being part of a community of people with similar goals and a desire to be decent folks.  It's a copout to say "church" is broken - "church" is people learning to get along with other people and creating a safe warm environment to raise children and make lifelong friends.  "Church" is no different than any other group of people - it's no guarantee every person there is perfection and that is hardly a reason to condemn the group's purpose.

The last thing "church" is about is dogma and it's as much a copout to say dogma keeps you from being part a great group of people as it is to be the one using dogma to create separation from other people.  It's the same stupid act actually.  One doesn't go to the church to find perfection and be perfected - one goes because we're all imperfect and yet we're all responsible for making the world a nicer place.

I hear a lot in this thread I hear all the time - much of it is at best juvenile rationalization.  I don't go to church because...
... my Mommy made me dress up
... God won't give me lollipops 24x7
... I insist on free will but God won't limit others' acts
... God lets mean people live and makes nice people die
... Every person has to be sweet to me before I'll help neighbors clean up our street
... God only likes pretentious people in his church
... of George Bush

Bah.

I attend a church because our neighborhood needs people committed to keeping the community strong.  I attend because I want my kids to have something to do several days a week and I don't want to fill their lives with a bunch of useless activities that just promote entitlement.  I attend church because I meet a lot of different kinds of people and learn things about myself all the time.

I do NOT attend church because I was raised to - I wasn't raised in any religious grounding but insyead completely in literate and scientific household.  I do NOT attend church so God will remember he loves me - I doubt he really has the bandwidth to get personally involved.  I do NOT attend church to find perfection and justify myself as the same.  I'm not there for any real "religious" reason except Fellowship - the one thing the real Jesus emphasized over any other reason to stay engaged.

That said I did have an amazing personal experience several years ago that within days of its event completely ripped away all the rationalizations I used to blind myself from fellowship.  There is no doubt in my mind we "see" but a very small bit of an ultimate reality.  I also think it serves no reasonable purpose to dwell overly much on ultimate reality.  Belief in a deity and in dogma are really completely separate topics than a reality much larger than what we can experience and measure with equipment.  Though I suspect science will have no trouble giving us more details within the next several generations.

Anyway you go to church because it's still the best way to find decent people trying to make a more decent world.  It's something that brings purpose as well as enjoyment to one's life.

My mother is a Christian (strangely enough the chruch we went to when I was little never named itself as "Baptist" or anything like that), and my father is something of an athiest.

Our minister was a great guy and one of the nicest people I've ever known, that was about the only reason I could stand going to chruch. I read the bible front to back in before 3rd grade, when we pretty much stopped going to chruch. It just never clicked with me, it all just seemed like stories. I don't even remember being all that critical of it, I just didn't care. I wanted to get home, out of those uncomfortable "chruch clothes", and get back to playing with my Commodore 64.

My mother still considers herself a Christian, but she has a really really hard time with other Christians condemning anyone else to hell (especially some Christians who have a problem with Jews, since I could've sworn the bible refers to them as God's "Chosen People") for their beliefs since she thinks that strong faith alone is good enough for god.

My dad is a Marine (honorably discharged for medical reasons, but there is no such thing as an ex-Marine), and a Vietnam vet. To be honest I don't know all that much about what he had to experience, but I can tell it wasn't terribly pleasant since he still had nightmares about it for a good part of my early life. There are things he still hasn't old my mother, and things he probably will never tell anyone. I guess seeing man's inhumanity towards man will kinda take the god right out of you.

If more churchgoers had that attitude, there would be more churchgoers. The problem has always been the dogma and how some embrace that as the "the point" of church. Children have a hard time seeing the community aspect you describe. For kids, school is the community.

I think you make very good points.  Basically I think that's the most fertile ground Paelos can plow for whatever purpose he started this thread.  The logical next step is continue to be a part of the community but be an active part of the more balanced crowd.  That it takes effort isn't objection enough.

Actually, I disagree.  Children have a hard time seeing the community aspects you describe because they're parents actions don't demonstrate what they preach.  I can't tell you how many parents I meet with annually who encourage their children to be active community members while doing nothing for the community themselves.  A similar problem exists in many communities (including the hypocracy we see in church).  People are wonderful about talking about what should or needs to be done, but very few are willing to donate their time to the cause beyond a little window dressing.  Even while I was in medical school and raising a daughter I found time to work in a women's shelter, volunteer in a hospice, and donate my time to a local long-term care facility.  It's no surprise that my daughter is very interested in community service... and I can't recall ever telling her it was something that she should do.  Actions speak louder than words as they say.

The problems I see with most organized religions is that the majority of their followers are great about telling people how things should be.  They're just piss poor about demonstrating it with their actions.   Dropping $5 into a donations plate is not the same as going out into the community.  People prefer to buy their way out of community service.  The result: less real community.  The respect that I retain for the churchgoing community is largely due to the fact that a higher percentage of churchgoers actively volunteer than the general public. That still leaves a high percentage of hypocrates though.

For the record, I am not a Christian nor do I attend any religious services.  My ethics and morals are not connected to a drive to serve an organized religion. 

The main aspect I'm focusing on in my article on building a better church is to almost eliminate the talk in favor of action. The church I want isn't a place to sit on Sunday and listen. It's not even a building. It's a group of people getting together on a Tuesday night to volunteer in the cancer ward. It's a couple of guys coordinating a food drive for the needy. And on Sundays, its that same group getting together to worship and plan next week's activities.

Bingo.

If you manage this, it could be a quantum leap forward for organized religion in America.  I really like the way you describe "a church".  My grandfather was a Lutheran minister in the midwest during the depression and gave most of his services in his native Czech.  The man's life was devoted to the service of mankind and he was remembered by his congregation 50+ years later for it.  If today's church could find those roots , I think it would do a great bit of good for the image of organized religion.  I wish you all the best.  It seems a worthy effort.

Well, that's what the original church "used" to be. Just fellow believers meeting inside their homes, having dinner together, and plotting to change the Roman empire.

I hear that China is like this now (though they do have an "official" church, most people meet in secret).

Separation of church and state is more to the benefit of church than state, imo.

Sure, just prove god exists otherwise it is just like any other club.

Except for the whole tax-break thing?

I'm not sure what you just asked.

What I said was, except for the fact that churches are tax-exempt, I'm sure they'd benefit plenty from an actualized, realized separation of church and state. But since churches are tax exempt, I'd wager that they benefit from "church and state" not being separate.

Berr......does that make sense? Churches benefit more (financially) from the separation being a crock of shit in reality.

I'm of the opinion that any church which isn't already a non-profit organization would benefit greatly from becoming one, and my understanding is that non-profit organizations enjoy tax-exempt status regardless of religious affiliation.

Speaking as the ex-accountant, you get a cookie.